r 


INEZ 


The 

RADICAL 


By 
I.   K.   FRIEDMAN 

AUTHOR  OF 
"BY  BKEAD  ALONE" 


D.  APPLE TON  AND  COMPANY 
NEW  YORK  MCMVII 


COPYRIGHT,  1907,  BY 
D.  APPLETON  AND  COMPANY 


Published  September,  1907 


TO 
MY  SISTER  EMMA 


CONTENTS 


BOOK  ONE 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I. — A  TRIBUTE  TO  BRAINS 3 

II. — A  DANGEROUS  MAN n 

III.— A  FALL  FROM  GRACE 18 

IV. — THE  LIFE  AND  ADVENTURES  OF  ADDISON  HAM 
MERSMITH  28 

V. — BRAINS  Bow  TO  WEALTH 35 

VI. — THE  TATTOOED  MAN 44 

BOOK  TWO 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I. — THE  MAGIC  CARPET 59 

II. — AN  ENEMY  TO  BRUCE 66 

III. — OUR  HERO  is  TEMPTED 74 

IV. — THE  SPEAKER'S  DAUGHTER 87 

V. — THE  CITY  OF  HOPE   .......  99 

VI. — THE  CAVERN  OF  DESPAIR 107 

VII. — THE  DISTURBANCE 118 

VIII.— R.  R.'s  DISDAIN  FOR  POLITICIANS  INCREASES      .  128 

IX. — THE  INTERVENTION  OF  ELAINE       .       .       .       .140 

X. — THE  PEA  AND  THE  COCOANUT        ....  149 

XI. — THE  HERO  AS  A  FOOL      .       .       ,       .       .       .154 

XII. — ONLY  THE  PRESIDENT  161 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

XIII. — ON  THE  RELATIONSHIP  OF  SOAPSUDS  TO  DESTINY  .  175 

XIV. — THE  GODDESS  DESCENDS  FROM  THE  MACHINE  .  182 

XV. — THE  FRUITS  OF  VICTORY 193 


BOOK  THREE 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I. — A  WHITE  NIGHT 203 

II. — GEORGIA'S  SCHEME 210 

III. — A  DAY  WITH  SENATOR  MCALLISTER      .       .       .  215 

IV. — PETER'S  JOB 221 

V. — THE  CAT  SCRATCHES  AT  THE  BAG         .       .       .228 

VI. — THE  ARMS  OF  THE  ENEMY 234 

VII. — SERVANTS  OF  THE  REPUBLIC 243 

VIII. — A  FALLING  OUT 257 

IX. — THE  HOMAGE  OF  HYPOCRISY 271 

X. — BEHIND  CLOSED  DOORS 275 

XL— THE  ORDEAL 282 

XII.— JUST  A  WORD 288 

XIII. — A  BATTLE  IN  THE  SENATE 296 

XIV. — THE  TRIBUTE 306 

XV. — GEORGIA'S  DEPARTURE 311 

XVI.— R.  R.  DISAPPEARS 317 

XVII. — CHARITY  AND  JUSTICE 330 

XVIII. — SHACKLED 339 

XIX. — SIR  ANTHONY  RIDES  TO  THE  RESCUE    .       .       .  344 

XX. — CROSSING  THE  RUBICON 353 


Vlll 


BOOK  ONE 


CHAPTER   I 

A    TRIBUTE    TO    BRAINS 

AT  bottom  the  display  of  wealth  is  as  un-American  as 
the  flaunting  of  a  title  and  its  accompanying  coat 
of  arms.     At  any  rate,  one  might  so  have  believed 
from  the  exclamations  leveled  by  the  friends  of  the  "  Butcher 
Boy,"  a  cosmopolitan  if  not  an  exclusive  legion,  against  that 
plutocratic   corner   in    the   drab,    plebeian   hall   made   both 
pecuniarily    conspicuous    and    respectable    by    silks,    ostrich 
feathers,  jewels,  dress  suits,  and  lorgnettes. 

But  we  are  called  to  attend  that  most  characteristic  of 
American  institutions,  a  political  meeting,  and  not  to  listen 
to  wide-of-the-mark  deductions;  therefore,  let  us  delay  no 
longer  the  fat  chairman,  toying  with  his  gavel  and  estab 
lishing  a  formal  acquaintance  between  his  nervous  fingers 
and  the  gelid  pitcher  of  water.  From  the  depths  of  his 
great  stomach,  shaped  in  its  shapelessness  like  a  wine  bag 
of  the  Orientals,  comes  a  ridiculously  still,  small  voice  that 
says: 

"  Ladies  and  Gentlemen :  It  is  now  my  duty — nay,  my 
pleasure — to  introduce  to  you — nay,  to  present  to  you,  for 
who  does  not  know  him? — that  brilliant,  capable,  and  elo 
quent  young  gentleman,  Mr.  Addison  Hammersmith,  who 
has  already  shed  so  much  luster  on  the  honored  name  of  his 
family,  who  has  refused  to  let  luxury  put  fetters  on  his 
talents,  who " 

3 


THE   RADICAL 

"  Don't  be  kapin'  us  here  all  evenin'  wid  yer  '  whos  ' !  " 
called  an  American  wit,  evidently  of  Celtic  origin,  whose 
name,  alas!  has  not  escaped  oblivion. 

"  Shut  up !  Let  the  man  finish !  "  cried  that  lover  of 
fair  play  who  can  be  found  in  any  American  assembly,  eager 
to  use  his  fist  or  his  tongue  on  the  side  that  gives  him  the 
better  chance. 

"  Hurrah  for  the  chairman !  There's  no  fat  on  his  brain, 
anyway!  Give  him  the  glad  hand!  "  bawled  a  true  patron 
of  native  eloquence,  jumping  to  his  feet. 

The  pot-bellied  chairman,  turning  turkey-red  as  if  in 
modest  acknowledgment  of  the  compliments  hurled  at  him, 
rapped  for  quiet  in  order  that  the  rest  of  his  remarks  might 
be  heard,  which  goes  to  show  his  modesty  was  both  prema 
ture  and  affected.  A  policeman,  whose  sincere  efforts  to 
maintain  quiet  were  due  merely  to  the  fact  that  he  was 
paid  for  the  purpose,  hastened  toward  the  quarter  of  the 
hall  where  the  militant  friends  of  brain  were  seated  in 
general  and  the  friend  of  eloquence  in  particular. 

The  large  audience  arose  as  one  from  its  seats  to  watch 
the  fun.  It  had  feared  it  would  be  enlightened  only,  but 
now  that  the  entertainment  of  a  fight  was  to  be  thrown 
into  the  bargain,  it  ceased  to  be  bored  and  became  jubilant. 
Above  the  catcalls,  the  stamping  of  feet,  the  whistling  and 
shrieking,  our  patron  of  eloquence  declaimed  with  all  the 
fervor  due  the  art  he  so  admired : 

"  I  tell  you  it  wasn't  me!  I  ain't  a-going  to  get  out  fer 
no  cop !  This  is  a  free  country !  " 

This  appeal  for  the  preservation  of  American  institu 
tions  at  once  brought  forth  hearty  acclamation  from  up 
holders  of  the  principles  of  the  fathers — a  Pole,  a  Swede, 
a  Bohemian,  and  a  Russian  Jew.  "  We'll  stand  by  you, 
O'Rourke!  "  "  Hit  him  back!  "  "  Grab  his  club  away!  " 

4 


A   TRIBUTE  TO  BRAINS 

and  so  saying  they  rushed  forward  to  put  themselves  between 
the  cop  and  his  victim  on  whose  head  something  harder  than 
a  hand  in  benediction  threatened  to  fall. 

And  now,  O  ye  sons  of  American  liberty,  forward  and  to 
the  rescue!  Listen  to  the  vibrant  voices  of  the  brawny  de 
fenders  of  brain  and  economic  equality!  "  Put  the  cop  out!  " 
"  McAllister's  friends  to  the  front!  "  "  This  is  a  trick  of  the 
rich  guys !  " 

Up  and  down  go  chairs  and  heads,  bodies  jam  and  crush 
forward,  fisticuffs  threaten  and  the  friends  of  brain  promise 
to  invade  the  far-off  exclusive  corner  occupied  by  mere  lucre, 
craning  its  hydra  head  to  see,  when  two  more  myrmidons 
ascend  as  out  of  a  trap  door  from  the  saloon  below  and  re 
store  order. 

A  body,  doubtlessly  the  valuable  though  not  negotiable 
property  of  the  aforesaid  patron  of  oratory,  was  heard  to  roll 
and  crash  down  the  stairs,  and  the  voice  of  its  owner,  as  if  to 
exhaust  the  possibilities  of  so  dramatic  an  exit  shouted: 
"  They  didn't  put  me  out,  by  God !  No,  by  God,  they  didn't 
put  me  out!  " 

The  whole  gathering,  aristocratic  as  well  as  plebeian,  was 
doubled  up  with  laughter  over  the  paradoxical  situation  of  a 
man  who  declared  he  was  still  in  his  seat  when  circumstan 
tial  evidence  so  unmistakably  showed  that  he  was  rolling 
down  the  stairs  with  more  regard  to  speed  than  dignity. 
Humor  is  ever  the  great  American  leveler,  laughter  makes 
us  forgetful  of  class — for  a  second  or  two. 

But  in  this  chorus  one  man  joined  not,  and  the  striking 
exception  was  none  other  than  that  worthy  and  ingenuous 
young  gentleman,  Mr.  Addison  Hammersmith,  whose  virtues 
the  chairman  has  already  trumpeted,  so  there  is  no  need  of 
recording  them  again  with  our  lesser  instrument.  It  was 
not  because  Addison  Hammersmith  was  such  a  serious  mor- 


THE  RADICAL 

tal  that  he  frowned  down  on  this  exhibition  of  frivolity,  but 
rather  because  he  was  too  frightened  to  know  what  was  go 
ing  on  anywhere  save  in  his  own  mind.  Candidate  for 
alderman  on  the  Republican  ticket,  it  was  Addison's  first  ap 
pearance  in  public;  and  all  of  us  who  have  gone  through  a 
similar  ordeal  know  that  the  resultant  sensation  is  different 
than  that  obtained  by  striking  our  funny  bone. 

Addison's  audience  was  composed  of  Poles,  Irish,  Bohem 
ians,  Hungarians,  Swedes,  Croatians,  Italians  and  Russian 
Jews,  who  had  come  from  the  "  wrong  end  "  of  the  ward  to 
hear  the  joint  debate  between  him  and  his  rival  on  the  Demo 
cratic  ticket,  one  Bruce  McAllister,  bearer  of  the  savory  cog- 
nomen  Butcher  Boy.  Many  of  these  scarcely  could  under 
stand  English,  and  most  of  them  had  just  as  much  interest 
.in  the  theme  of  discussion  as  they  would  have  had  in  two 
different  solutions  of  the  same  problem  in  differential  cal 
culus.  What  they  wanted  was  to  see  the  Butcher  Boy  worst 
the  gilded  youth.  They  were  willing  to  bet  odds  that  he 
could,  and  what  was  more,  if  he  didn't,  they  would,  even  if 
they  had  to  toss  a  cop  or  two  over  the  gallery  to  do  it. 

Now  since  the  aristocratic  Addison  despised  all  these 
people  as  being  mongrel  and  low-bred  foreigners,  one  won 
ders  why  he  cared  whether  his  speech  oozed,  as  it  threatened 
to  do,  through  his  finger  tips  or  spouted  with  fine  rapture 
from  his  throat.  But  human  nature  is  inconsistent,  and  it 
may  be  said  that  the  people  whose  good  opinion  we  crave 
most  are  often  those  we  most  dislike. 

Moreover,  there  sat  beside  Addison  on  the  platform  the 
Republican  mayor  and  several  other  city  dignitaries,  Ad 
dison's  father,  a  florid  bewhiskered  old  gentleman ;  his  moth 
er,  who  was  quite  beautiful  with  her  young  face  and  silver 
hair,  and  his  sister  Inez  who  was  still  more  beautiful.  On 
all  of  these  as  well  as  on  the  occupants  of  the  aristocratic 

6 


A  TRIBUTE  TO   BRAINS 

corner  Addison  was  eager  to  make  a  good  impression,  above 
everything  he  hated  to  make  a  fool  of  himself  before  his  fa 
ther,  and  thereby  justify  the  opinion  that  gentleman  had  ex 
pressed  about  his  son  on  sundry  occasions;  nor  did  he  want 
to  disappoint  his  mother  and  sister,  who  kept  predicting  a 
career  for  him. 

"  Don't  be  nervous,  Addison,"  whispered  his  mother, 
which  was  quite  as  practical  in  the  way  of  advice  as  if  she 
had  bade  him  cease  to  be  Addison. 

"  Speak  as  if  you  were  in  the  music  room  talking  to  me," 
encouraged  Inez  Hammersmith — which  would  have  been  ex 
cellent  counsel  could  she  have  transported  him  home  to  have 
administered  it. 

Addison  frowned;  a  trifle  annoyed  that  his  mother  and 
sister,  even  though  they  had  written  his  speech  for  him, 
should  conduct  themselves  as  if  upon  him  did  not  devolve  the 
entire  fearful  responsibility  of  delivering  it.  They  were  un 
mindful,  perhaps  a  little  ungrateful  for  the  effort  he  was 
making  for  the  glory  of  the  family. 

On  such  dark  reflections  as  these,  broke  the  droning  voice 
of  the  chairman,  bubbling  indistinctly  from  the  shapeless 
depths  of  him: 

"  Ladies  and  gentlemen,  Mr.  Addison  Hammersmith 
himself  will  now  address  you."  His  voice  died  away  like  the 
whir  of  a  clock  that  has  taxed  all  but  the  extreme  end  of  its 
tightly  wound  spring. 

Mr.  Addison  Hammersmith  himself  was  feeling  very 
much  like  a  man  who  looks  upon  death  as  inevitable  and 
unavoidable  and  therefore  never  worries  about  it  until  the 
pallid  phantom  has  him  by  the  collar.  His  heart  performed 
a  remarkable  physiological  feat — dropping  to  the  bottom  of 
his  shoes;  and  a  force  that  Addison  had  never  read  about  in 
his  study  of  physics,  which  was  profound,  pulled  him  back 

7 


THE   RADICAL 

on  his  chair  when  he  attempted  to  arise.  Another  force, 
equally  unknown,  dragged  him  off  his  feet  and  whisked 
him,  trembling  before  its  awful  power,  in  front  of  the 
speakers'  table.  It  was  all  in  all  an  heroic  achievement 
that  called  forth  the  unstinted  applause  of  Buck  O'Brien's 
claqueurs,  each  of  whom  would  have  been  blotted  in  dishonor 
from  the  city's  pay  roll  if  he  had  let  escape  the  dramatic 
moment. 

Addison's  round  little  form  bowed  from  left  to  right  with 
all  the  spontaneity  of  an  automaton,  the  tints  of  his  straw- 
colored  hair  and  his  pink  cheeks  seeming  to  change  as  he 
did  so.  Something  whirled  around  in  the  inside  of  his  head 
that  resembled  a  pyrotechnic  wheel  in  shape  and  garish  lucid 
ity,  and  he  could  no  more  stop  it  than  turn  the  night  into 
day.  That  wheel  being  nothing  else  than  his  speech  you  will 
^understand  his  desire  to  bring  it  to  a  halt,  and  force  it  to 
do  the  service  for  which  it  was  intended.  His  ineffectual 
attempt  to  hold  even  a  spoke  made  his  arms  and  legs  as 
shaky  as  if  they  were  entangled  in  the  hub  of  a  wheel  more 
actual  and  less  metaphorical. 

"  Don't  be  afraid,  mamma  is  with  you !  "  bellowed  an 
other  inglorious  but  unfortunately  not  mute  friend  of  brain. 

"  Shut  up ;  give  custard  pie  a  show !  "  howled  another, 
anxious  to  prove  that  victorious  brain  could  be  magnanimous 
to  filthy  lucre  in  defeat. 

Laughter  let  go  both  its  sides,  but  the  ominous  thwack  of 
a  policeman's  club  hitting  forth  indiscriminately  taught  it 
the  wisdom  if  not  the  comfort  of  squeezing  its  diaphragm. 
The  hall  settled  down  to  a  quiet  like  that  of  sleeping  fields, 
snow  covered.  Fortunately  for  Addison  he  was  so  perturbed 
by  what  was  going  on  inside  of  him — accredit  him  at  least 
with  rare  presence  of  mind ! — that  he  heard  naught  of  what 
was  going  on  outside  of  him,  and  these  last  two  supreme 

8 


A  TRIBUTE  TO  BRAINS 

i 

shafts  of  wit  flew  as  far  over  his  head  as  if  they  had  not  been 
aimed  at  his  ears. 

Finally  the  mother,  perceiving  what  was  amiss,  leaned  far 
forward  and  whispered  to  him  the  first  sentence  of  his  speech ; 
and  by  dint  of  logic,  memory  and  intelligence — he  had  re 
hearsed  the  thing  at  least  ten  times — he  was  able  to  recon 
struct  paragraph  after  paragraph,  and  so  reach  the  middle. 
The  hall  not  being  particularly  interested  and  being  prohib 
ited  from  openly  expressing  its  disapproval,  went  to  sleep. 
The  reporter  of  the  Republican  wrote  in  his  "  story  "  that 
Addison's  voice  had  a  certain  soothing  quality,  and  since  the 
scribe  slumbered  away  with  the  other  auditors  he  certainly 
knew  whereof  he  spoke  and  must  therefore  pass  as  an  accu 
rate  observer. 

All  went  well  enough  for  a  while  until  Addison  reached 
that  passage  of  his  speech  wherein  he  said :  "  Fellow-citizens, 
the  fantastic  arguments  of  those  who  purport  to  defend  muni 
cipal  ownership  have  now  been  demolished."  For  here  it 
was  that  a  stanch  partisan  of  McAllister's,  fearful  for  the 
fate  of  his  leader,  shouted  over  the  rim  of  the  gallery:  "  No, 
they  ain't  been  smashed,  neither!  Wait  until  the  Butcher 
Boy's  turn  comes.  He'll  make  mince  meat  out  of  you !  " 
This  gallery  god,  like  many  another  false  god  before  him, 
received  homage  altogether  beyond  the  value  of  his  service 
to  a  credulous  mankind,  and  poor  Addison  was  so  taken 
aback  by  the  threat  and  the  response  it  awakened  that  he  for 
got  his  lines  and  stammered  and  stumbled  until  his  mother 
came  to  his  assistance  once  more.  The  incident  may  prove 
that  as  no  mortal  should  be  deemed  lucky  until  dead  so  no 
orator  should  be  considered  safe  until  seated. 

However,  the  last  of  his  oration  must  have  been  a  won 
derful  performance,  for  his  best  friends  had  to  admit  that  the 
first  of  it  was  a  little  below  mediocrity,  and  there  must  have 
2  9 


THE   RADICAL 

& 

been  some  part  of  it  on  which  the  truthful  and  observing 
representative  of  the  Republican  based  his  glowing  descrip 
tion  of  Addison's  forensic  powers. 

"  Attractive  in  appearance,  easy  in  manner,  with  a  vocab 
ulary  at  once  flexible  and  admirably  fitted  to  his  deep  and 
varied  emotions,  with  a  delivery,  which  if  not  exactly  Web- 

sterian,  still "  but  why  quote  the  scribe  at  length  when 

the  Hon.  Buck  O'Brien,  rushing  on  the  platform  the  moment 
his  candidate  was  seated,  and  slapping  him  enthusiastically  on 
the  back,  summed  up  the  situation  in  the  terse  phrase  or  two : 
"You  done  well,  little  Hammersmith!  Yer  ma  kin  be 
proud  of  you!  You  done  mighty  well!  You  done  noble!  " 


10 


CHAPTER    II 

A   DANGEROUS    MAN 

LADIES  and  gentlemen:  It's  now  my  pleasure  to  intro 
duce  to  you  Mr.  Bruce  McAllister,  a  man  who " 

"Hurrah  for  McAllister!"  "Give  it  to  him!" 
"  Deliver  the  meat  now,  Bruce!  "  "  Down  with  the  swell 
guy!" 

The  uproar  was  a  serviceable  lesson  in  dramatic  arrange 
ment  to  the  unpracticed  chairman;  namely,  to  draw  his 
speech  to  a  close,  not  to  start  it  with  a  climax;  for  it  was  as 
useless  as  impossible  to  continue  now. 

At  the  remote  end  of  the  platform  the  archtype  of 
brains  lifted  his  six  feet  and  one  inch  of  bone  and  muscle  from 
his  chair  and  walked  slowly  toward  the  speakers'  table.  The 
long  tails  of  his  frock  coat — proper  garment  for  the 
avowed  friend  of  the  common  people — flapped  around  his 
knees  and  made  his  walk  seem  more  awkward  than  it  really 
was. 

"  How  ugly  he  is!  "  thought  the  fair  Inez,  while  the 
applause  and  the  huzzaing  swelled  to  a  size  befitting  the 
apotheosis  of  intellect.  Fastidiousness  was  her  photographer, 
and  he  accentuated  that  long  gaunt  figure  and  threw  into 
bold  relief  that  swarthy  face,  with  its  crowning  mop  of  black 
hair,  the  ridiculously  big  ears,  the  slightly  protruding  under- 
lip,  the  long  mouth  and  the  nose.  "  I  declare,"  she  whis 
pered  to  Addison,  giving  her  impression  of  the  picture,  "  he 

II 


THE  RADICAL 

is  the  most  baggy  man  I  ever  knew.  His  trousers  bag  at  the 
knees,  his  thick  black  hair  bags  on  his  head,  his  ears  bag  at 
the  sides,  and  his  nose  bags  on  his  face!  " 

Addison  whose  taste  was  more  charitable  if  not  so  nice, 
frowned  and  shook  his  straw-colored  head  in  reply. 

The  Butcher  Boy  stood  there  in  quiet,  his  thin  shoulders 
stooped,  leaning  his  decentralized  weight  on  his  left  foot;  and 
a  broad  good-natured  grin,  in  full  appreciation  of  his  popu 
larity,  stretched  the  thin  lips  of  his  big  mouth  to  their  full 
length.  Admiration  swelled  to  thunder.  He  pushed  ob 
truding  locks  of  his  black  hair  away  from  his  swarthy  face 
and  sobered  with  the  responsibility  of  so  much  veneration, 
studied  the  individual  countenances  that  made  up  the  throng 
that  had  come  to  worship  at  his  shrine. 

He  lifted  himself  to  his  full,  towerlike  height,  and  his 
round  shoulders  were  thrown  back  straight  and  level.  He 
raised  his  long  arm  and  stretched  out  a  commanding  fore 
finger.  The  gesture  sent  his  coat  sleeves  ludicrously  far 
back  on  his  thin  wrists  and  twisted  his  collar  askew.  The 
aristocratic  section  indulged  in  a  well-bred  smile;  the  rest 
of  the  hall  could  have  vied  in  demeanor  with  Mrs.  Ham 
mersmith's  drawing-room.  All  that  could  be  heard  was  its 
heavy  breathing,  and  we  believe  that  no  book  on  etiquette 
puts  its  ban  on  breathing  or  commands  its  readers  under 
any  circumstances,  save  when  they  attend  their  own  funerals, 
to  hold  their  breath. 

The  audience,  Inez  perceived,  belonged  to  Bruce  McAl 
lister  in  the  sense  that  her  spirited  cob  belonged  to  her  when 
she  held  the  guiding  rein,  and  she  wondered  which  way 
the  odd  creature  would  head  the  hall.  The  odd  creature 
sloughed  off  his  oddity  at  once  and  lapsed  into  convention 
ality  by  relating  a  humorous  story,  without  which  no  Amer 
ican  may  approach  a  serious  duty.  Inez  laughed,  although 

12 


A  DANGEROUS  MAN 

she  had  determined  that  she  wouldn't,  not  because  the  ques 
tion  of  debate  was  in  any  way  sacred  to  her  and  she  resented 
a  joke  being  cracked  in  its  presence,  but  because  she  had 
made  up  her  mind  that  she  was  going  to  sit  in  judgment  on 
him  and  not  be  carried  away  with  him  as  the  rest  of  his 
listeners  so  evidently  were. 

His  good  nature  was  contagious ;  she  felt  its  irresistibility. 
It  bubbled  over  like  the  water  of  a  fall ;  it  cheered  you  like 
sunshine  on  a  spring  morning;  its  warmth  included  you  as 
insidiously  and  surely  as  the  shadows  of  noontide  do  the  hot 
fields  over  which  they  creep.  Where  wras  the  sense  of  re 
sisting  him?  Why  put  oneself  at  odds  with  him?  Then 
came  a  second  story  and  she  laughed  as  heartily  as  anybody, 
in  a  way  that  surprised  Addison  and  her  mother  who  always 
had  believed  her  coldly  self-contained.  "  Ah,  well,"  thought 
she,  "  he  is  only  a  jester,  anyway,  and " 

Before  she  had  finished  that  reflection  Bruce  McAllister 
was  engaged  in  seriously  demolishing  Addison  Hammer 
smith's  arguments,  and  since  Inez  herself  had  some  slight 
hand  in  their  construction  she  was  naturally  interested  in 
watching  them  fly  to  pieces.  She  had  thought  them  pillars 
of  marble ;  he  proved  them  mere  ornaments  of  stucco. 

The  shrill,  high  note  in  his  voice  had  grated  on  her  nice 
ear  when  he  started,  but  as  he  waxed  more  and  more  serious 
and  his  swarthy  face  graver,  his  tones  became  rich,  full,  and 
round.  He  passed  on  from  one  subject  to  another.  His  dis 
course  was  less  like  a  river  that  makes  for  a  certain  direc 
tion  than  a  lake  that  follows  no  definite  line  but  whose  waters 
Amoving  everywhere  compel  admiration  by  their  clearness, 
their  depth,  their  freshness.  Traction  concerned  him  not 
particularly;  he  used  it  merely  as  a  convenience  wherefrom 
to  survey  the  greater  problem  of  this  problem-ridden  genera 
tion. 

13 


THE  RADICAL 

"  He's  ambitious,"  thought  Inez,  "  he's  after  a  higher 
office."  And  so  he  was.  Her  conclusion  was  a  tacit  admis 
sion  that  she  saw  in  him  a  man  born  to  the  purple.  It  did 
credit  to  her  insight. 

Street  cars  were  not  the  only  thing  that  had  been  taken 
from  his  people,  he  said,  and  they  would  not  be  the  only 
thing  restored  them.  "  To  them  from  whom  has  been  stolen 
shall  it  be  returned  tenfold,"  seemed  not  only  his  fantastic 
writ  but  his  quack  remedy.  Again,  who  were  "  his  people  "  ? 

They  were  the  poor  and  the  lowly  and  the  foreign — those 
who  toiled  and  spun  during  their  youth  and  in  their  old 
age  were  neither  fed  by  the  fruits  of  their  labor  nor  warmed 
by  the  fabrics  of  their  spinning. 

His  people  were  those  who  built  the  mansions  of  the  rich 
and  closed  their  eyes  in  the  squalid  hovels  of  mean  streets. 

His  people  were  those  who  had  lost  merely  because  they 
never  were  allowed  to  enter  the  race  of  life. 

His  people  were  those  who  did  the  work  of  the  world  and 
stood  by  with  hungry  eyes  while  the  mighty  reaped  the  profits 
therefrom. 

His  people  were  the  voice  of  the  city  sobbing  out  at  night 
when  stricken  low  by  hunger  and  cold,  by  exhaustion  and 
heat.  The  voice  hung  like  an  echo  over  the  ruins  of  vanished 
civilizations,  threatening  the  downfall  of  the  new  govern 
ments  that  blindly  refused  to  give  it  heed. 

His  own  voice  throbbed  as  he  spoke;  there  was  a  tear  in 
it.  His  audience  became  a  single  individual  and  in  that 
amalgam  of  Pole,  Swede,  Russian  Jew,  Croat,  Irishman, 
Hungarian,  what  not,  the  aristocratic  Inez  Hammersmith, 
no  longer  able  to  hold  herself  disdainfully  aloof,  mingled  and 
lost  herself. 

He  hammered  his  remarks,  as  it  were,  into  the  brains  of 
his  listeners  by  the  most  awkward  of  gestures,  the  swinging 


A  DANGEROUS  MAN 

overhead  of  his  two  long  arms;  and  then,  before  one  was 
aware  of  the  awkwardness  of  it,  the  long  arms  were  hanging 
down  at  his  sides  and  the  golden  voice  carried  one  on  and 
on.  Who  notices  the  foam  flecks  in  a  swift  river  that  forces 
one  with  alarming  rapidity  away  from  the  hospitality  of  its 
shores  ? 

Inez  Hammersmith  toyed  absently  with  her  pearl  neck 
lace — perhaps,  as  women  will  in  moments  of  emotional  and 
religious  exaltation,  she  would  have  torn  it  from  her  throat 
and  flung  it  before  the  altar  of  this  high  priest  of  poverty — 
but  he  made  no  demand  for  revenue;  at  least  not  directly. 
Then  detaching  herself  from  this  unit,  she  became  herself 
and  curled  a  scornful  underlip.  "Demagogue!  Master 
of  every  rhetorical  trick!  Charlatan,  just  cunning  enough 
to  know  how  to  stir  the  basest  passions  of  the  mob !  " 

But  the  voice,  regardless  of  her  opinions,  surged  upward, 
touching  greater  heights  as  it  rose  from  the  seemingly  sound 
less  depths  of  him.  It  entered  the  skies  and  called  upon  the 
gods  to  look  down  on  the  sufferings  of  his  people,  prostrated 
now  by  the  hard  times  that  swept  like  a  blight  over  the 
land.  His  swarthy  face  was  woefully  solemn,  the  lines  in  it 
became  deep  and  rigid,  as  if  cut  out  of  marble  instead  of 
impressed  on  human  flesh.  He  was  evidently  a  man  of  many 
sorrows,  who,  like  Savonarola  and  Dante,  had  made  the  ac 
quaintance  of  grief  and  knew  all  its  bitterness,  and  like 
theirs  his  face  was  coarse,  heavy,  ugly  of  feature. 

For  a  second  his  melancholy  made  its  appeal  to  her,  al 
though  she  herself  was  not  aware  what  it  was  that  won  for 
the  moment  her  intellectual  sympathy.  But  again  she  cut 
herself  adrift.  "  Demagogue,  anyway!  "  she  pronounced,  this 
time  with  fist  clenched. 

And  yet  there  was  that  voice,  sensible  as  his  swarthy, 
coarse-featured  face,  to  be  reckoned  with.  How  rich,  how 

15 


THE  RADICAL 

full,  how  golden  it  was !  With  how  little  effort  did  he  make 
it  pour  and  pour  and  pour  from  him !  It  was  a  voice  fit  for 
a  singer  of  sublime  music,  not  meant  for  mobs  put  together  of 
the  riff-raff  of  all  nations,  suited  to  commune  in  lonely  places 
with  the  serene  stars  on  the  mountaintops.  Such  voices  she 
adored — as  who  does  not  ? — and  she  felt  the  pity  of  its  having 
been  given  him  to  debase  to  the  purposes  of  the  mean  dema 
gogue. 

He  paid  his  undesirable  respects  to  the  idle  and  luxurious 
rich.  "  They  are  lilies,"  he  said,  "  and  the  poor  are  the  soil 
out  of  which  these  beautiful  flowers  spring.  Consider  the 
soil ;  the  more  beautiful  these  lilies  grow  the  more  exhausted 
it  becomes.  What  pleasure  or  profit  has  the  soil  from  its 
labors,  do  not  even  the  very  lilies  that  it  bears  despise  the 
grime  and  blackness  that  have  brought  them  forth?  The 
white  hands  of  the  human  lily,"  ran  the  last  words  of  his 
homily,  "are  a  disgrace  to  it;  they  tell  of  rougher  hands 
made  blood  red  that  theirs  may  remain  lily  white." 

Inez  was  a  little  more  at  ease  because  her  own  hands  were 
gloved  and  hidden  from  view,  and  she  was  sensible  of  blush 
ing,  although  there  was  nothing  to  show  a  change  of  color. 
Then  she  felt  a  glow  of  resentment,  of  anger  at  the  presump 
tion  of  this  fellow  in  lecturing  her,  but  she  was  still  con 
scious  amid  her  provocation  that  there  was  nothing  personal 
in  what  he  said,  that  he  seemed  to  be  addressing  the  world  at 
large,  and  her  in  particular  only  because  she  formed  a  part 
of  the  world  he  addressed. 

A  tornado  of  applause  swept  her  out  of  her  self-absorption 
and  back  to  a  consciousness  of  her  unwonted  environment, 
advising  her  most  abruptly  that  he  had  done.  The  mighty 
shouts  of  "  Hurrah  for  the  Butcher  Boy!  "  "  Good  for  you, 
Bruce!  "  "  You  didn't  do  a  thing  to  the  rich  guy;  oh,  no!  " 
shocked  her  sense  of  the  fitness  of  things,  as  if  she  herself 

16 


A  DANGEROUS  MAN 

had  elevated  him  to  a  place  where  the  cries  of  this  mob  could 
not  penetrate.  Then  she  was  thankful  to  the  hoi  polloi  for 
restoring  her  to  herself  and  fixing  her  relationship  to  the  out 
side  universe. 

"  A  dangerous  man,"  she  repeated,  to  convince  herself  of 
the  truth  and  the  justice  of  this  judgment  as  she  watched  him 
retreat  to  his  inconspicuous  corner,  his  glittering  blue-gray 
eyes  bent  on  the  floor  as  he  mopped  his  brow. 

And  dangerous  he  was  without  a  doubt;  but  dangerous 
to  what  and  to  whom  ? 


CHAPTER   III 

A    FALL    FROM    GRACE 

INEZ  was  acknowledging  with  a  bow  and  a  smile  Addi- 
son's  introduction  of  his  swarthy  rival,  towering  above 
her  almost  a  half  head.  Inez  herself  just  missed  being 
too  tall.  He  was  sensible  of  her  beauty,  of  the  regular  face 
with  its  finely  chiseled  features,  of  the  robust  form,  of  the 
solid  flesh  and  the  vigorous  muscles  that  made  themselves 
felt  even  under  the  folds  of  her  gown  and  her  furs,  of  the 
radiant  health  that  traced  pink  tints  in  her  white-as-ivory 
cheeks.  Her  chest  was  as  ample,  as  well  developed  as  a 
singer's,  and  her  shoulders  and  back  seemed  as  strong  as  a 
man's,  yet  their  finely  feminine  lines  carried  with  them  no 
suggestion  of  masculinity.  "  Beautiful,  but  cold  as  ice," 
was  his  first  thought;  to  which  after  a  swiftly  inquiring 
glance  at  her  large  brown  eyes  he  added,  "  More  brain  than 
Addison,  but  less  heart." 

"  How  very  ugly  he  is,"  she  thought,  her  mind  wandering 
between  the  praise  and  the  blame  she  wished  to  mete  out;  and 
her  indecision  gave  her  the  sensation  of  being  on  the  less  com 
fortable  end  of  the  see-saw.  She  was  conscious  of  his  sharp, 
glittering,  blue-gray  eyes  feeling  their  way  through  the  back 
of  her  head,  and  she  was  sure  that  his  baffling  smile  bespoke 
his  amusement  at  catching  her  in  a  position  so  undignified. 
A  conventional  phrase  brought  her  feet  in  contact  with  the 
earth.  A  phrase,  equally  conventional  came  from  him,  and 
so  they  teeter-tottered  for  a  while,  arriving  nowhere. 

18 


A   FALL  FROM  GRACE 

He  seemed  more  troubled  than  embarrassed  in  his  awk 
ward  way,  as  if  he  wished  to  escape  the  irksomeness  of  a 
formal  conversation.  She  observed  that  his  eyes  were  heavy, 
and  his  voice  husky,  as  if  he  had  expended  every  particle  of 
his  energy,  and  as  if  he  had  squandered  all  the  force  of  his 
soul  on  his  oration.  A  few  minutes  later  he  swung  his  hat 
in  a  semicircle,  bowed  and  retired.  When  Inez  entered  the 
carnage  to  drive  home  she  noticed  him  and  his  host  of  camp- 
followers  enter  the  saloon  under  the  hall.  According  to  her 
knowledge  and  estimate  of  such  things  it  was  a  low  and  vul 
gar  resort  and  her  underlip  curled  contemptuously.  It  was 
as  if  some  star  to  which  she  had  been  attracted  for  a  second's 
consideration  had  shot  from  the  unsmirched  skies  and  dropped 
into  the  mud. 

There  was,  however,  a  certain  indecision  in  Bruce's  step, 
a  certain  reluctance  in  his  movement  that,  observing  though 
she  was,  escaped  her  altogether.  Good  nature,  tired  nerves 
crying  out  for  relaxation,  the  jubilation  of  his  friends,  lifted 
him  over  the  bars  erected  by  his  better  judgment.  For  him 
to  enter  any  saloon  was  to  give  hostages  to  the  evil  genius 
that  presided  over  it.  It  was  to  match  his  weaker  strength 
with  the  terrible  temptation  from  which  he  had  been  fleeing. 

His  father,  Andrew  McAllister,  a  Scotch-Irish  lawyer, 
celebrated  in  the  annals  of  Illinois  in  the  time  of  Lincoln, 
nourished  a  love  for  the  whiskies  of  both  countries  that  ar 
gued  a  perfect  impartiality  for  his  ancestry.  Whisky  grad 
ually  enticed  Andrew  from  eminence  to  penury  and  then 
dragged  him  into  a  drunkard's  grave.  Bruce  inherited  his 
father's  eloquence  and  with  it  the  desire  for  the  liquor,  we 
are  told,  that  heats  its  cockrels  to  inspiration.  Between  him 
and  the  glass,  however,  stood  the  apparition,  seen  so  often  in 
his  boyhood,  of  his  drunken  father  lifting  a  hand  to  strike 
his  white-haired  mother.  Often  and  often  he  had  sat  with 

19 


THE  RADICAL 

her  through  the  watches  of  the  night  in  wait  for  his  dis 
solute  sire.  Often  he  had  trembled  like  a  string  suddenly 
broken  when  his  father  entered  and  staggered  by  his  broken 
hearted  wife  murmuring  gently,  "  Andy!  O  Andy!  " 

Moreover,  Andrew  McAllister  had  left  Bruce  at  the  age 
of  sixteen  to  see  to  it  that  the  family  kept  out  of  the  poor 
house,  and  the  responsibilities  of  the  inheritance  were  con 
ducive  to  sobriety.  Politics,  even  in  his  boyhood,  had  struck 
Bruce  as  the  easiest  way  to  lift  himself  and  the  family  out 
of  the  pit;  but  the  wonder  was,  its  associations  considered, 
that  it  did  not  drag  the  boy  under  the  slime  that  paves  it. 
He  slipped  in  that  ooze  and  filth  more  than  once,  staggered 
to  his  feet  and  mounted  again;  for  his  gaze  was  lifted  up 
ward  ever,  and  inward  voices,  impossible  to  sully  or  silence, 
called  him  to  the  stars.  One  of  these  voices  belonged  to 
ambition,  to  all  that  concerned  the  immediate  selfish  inter 
ests  of  Bruce  McAllister;  another  of  these  voices  belonged 
to  his  people — the  people  of  the  pit  with  whom  the  lot  of  his 
boyhood  had  been  cast  and  his  youth  and  early  manhood 
passed,  who  called  on  him  to  lift  them  as  he  rose.  These 
two  voices  commingled  strangely,  often  becoming  as  one,  and 
if  he  had  one  eye  open  for  the  fortunes  of  Bruce  McAllister 
the  other  was  never  shut  on  what  he  dignified  by  the  name  of 
"  The  Cause." 

However,  there  were  forces  outside  of  him  that  sang  in 
unison  with  the  voices  that  stirred  within.  His  widowed 
mother,  silver-haired,  self-sacrificing,  encouraged  him  with 
a  smile  and  chastised  him  with  a  tear ;  his  sister  Elaine,  kind, 
lovable  and  firm,  scolded  him,  and  his  better  balanced  though 
younger  brother,  Peter,  pointed  the  road  by  sane  and  sensible 
example.  The  boy  and  the  young  man  had  soiled  his  hands 
with  the  slime-covered  gold  that  finds  its  way  into  politics; 
he  had  grafted  with  the  worst  and  best  of  them ;  he  had  gam- 

20 


A   FALL  FROM  GRACE 

bled  heavily,  following  the  dictates  of  a  naturally  supersti 
tious  nature ;  he  had  on  one  or  two  occasions  threatened  to  go 
to  pieces  morally  by  overindulgence  in  liquor,  and  yet  his 
trend  was  upward,  spiralwise,  dipping  downward  here  and 
there,  but  mounting  ever,  ever  mounting.  Conscience  casti 
gated  him  after  each  relapse,  goading  him  onward ;  and  the 
sensitiveness  of  his  conscience  developed  with  the  growth  of 
the  man.  The  immortal,  inextinguishable  spark  in  him  threw 
its  ray  of  light  across  the  blackness  of  the  pit  and  pointed 
the  way  out. 

Even  his  selfishness  was  not  of  the  lowest  sort  and  what 
had  come  to  him  in  the  way  of  graft  went  out,  unknown  to 
them,  to  pay  for  Elaine's  lessons  at  the  Art  Institute,  or 
Peter's  lessons  in  one  of  the  night  schools  devoted  to  the 
sciences.  He  was  the  head  of  the  house,  and  a  born  dreamer, 
he  advanced  its  material  fortunes  merely  because  the  sternest 
of  life's  realities  forced  him  into  practicability.  His  dreams 
were  still  his — a  precious  possession  that  he  kept  buried  in  the 
privacy  of  his  own  heart  and  drew  forth  to  admire  after  the 
work  of  the  day.  His  dreams,  to  shift  metaphors,  were  the 
haven  into  which  he  hoped  to  anchor  his  ship  at  last,  making 
the  long  hard  cruise  over  the  waters  of  practicability  worth 
the  while. 

Meanwhile,  in  Gravenheim's  saloon  there  is  going  on  the 
little  comedy-drama  in  which  our  hero  has  chosen  against 
his  better  judgment  to  play  a  part.  Hands  from  every  direc 
tion  shot  out  toward  him  the  moment  he  crossed  the  thres 
hold  and  the  cry  of  "  What's  the  matter  with  McAllister!  " 
and  its  inevitable  answer  made  the  huge  beer  steins  back  of 
the  bar  rattle.  Invitations  to  drink  were  so  numerous  that 
to  refuse  them  exhausted  both  his  diplomacy  and  his  voice. 
He  sought  refuge  in  cigars,  lighting  a  long  black  one,  sticking 
the  rest  in  his  pockets. 

21 


THE  RADICAL 

"'Well,  Bruce,"  shouted  one  Skaprowski,  "  you  done  that 
little  up.  He  won't  trouble  you  no  more  this  cam 
paign." 

The  hero  of  the  hour  and  the  place  nodded,  twirling  his 
cigar  in  his  mouth  and  giving  no  answer.  The  warm  atmos 
phere — it  was  raw  and  cold  outside — the  electric  lights,  the 
garish  decorations  (his  taste  was  of  the  crudest)  set  up  a 
train  of  expansive  feelings  in  Bruce's  heart  and  made  him 
doubly  kind  toward  that  little  parasitic  world  that  was  feel 
ing  so  kind  toward  him.  His  tired  nerves  were  relaxing, 
calling  for  greater  stimulus  to  wind  them  again.  He  longed 
for  a  drink,  and  literally  speaking  he  wras  for  turning  his  back 
on  the  longing.  Already  he  had  removed  his  foot  from  the 
rail  that  ran  along  the  base  of  the  bar  and  faced  around, 
when  temptation  personified  in  the  capacious  bulk  of  Buck 
O'Brien,  leader  of  the  Republican  forces,  approached  him. 
Buck  was  inimical  to  Bruce  only  in  his  public  life  and  capac 
ity  ;  privately  speaking  he  loved  him. 

'  'Twas  a  foine  spache  ye  made,  Bruce,"  opined  the  crit 
ical  Buck.  "  Damn  me,  if  I  didn't  have  half  a  moind  ter  be- 
lave  what  ye  said  whilst  ye  was  a-saying  av  it." 

"  Like  the  old  lady,"  laughed  Bruce,  "  who  said  she 
wouldn't  believe  she  was  deaf  only  she  couldn't  hear." 

"  But  did  ye  belave  it  yerself,  Bruce?  " 

"  A  reasonable  amount  of  it,"  returned  Bruce,  a  smile 
that  might  have  meant  anything  wavering  across  his  swarthy 
face. 

"  Good !     Will  ye  have  somethin'  ?  " 

Our  hero  hesitated.  "  Well,  I'll  take  a  seltzer  and 
lemon." 

"  It's  the  mugwump  av  drinks,  Bruce." 

"  Mugwumpism  does  well  enough  while  you  are  making 
up  your  mind." 

22 


A   FALL   FROM  GRACE 

The  crowd  of  satellites  pressed  close  to  these  two  supreme 
planets  of  their  small  political  world  to  catch  what  light  and 
heat  they  might  choose  to  dispense.  Buck  told  a  story; 
Bruce  followed  him,  setting  the  saloon  in  a  roar  with  another 
and  another.  Some  generous  patron  of  pure  music  dropped 
a  dime  in  the  slot  of  the  automatic  harp  and  the  muses  re 
warded  him  in  the  shape  of  "  A  Hot  Time  in  the  Old 
Town  To-night !  "  The  ballad  had  the  stamp  of  our  hero's 
approval — nicest  of  musical  critics,  he!  And  he  added  an 
other  bay  to  the  composer's  wreath  by  shouting  with  the 
chorus.  Corks  popped ;  bottles  opened.  A  livelier  note  had 
been  struck  and  the  saloon  quickened  its  tempo  accordingly. 

Bricktop  Anderson — the  terrible  Swede — Bruce's  lieu 
tenant  in  the  old  days — swept  the  center  with  a  buck-and- 
wing  dance  to  the  accompaniment  on  the  piano  of  one  Larry 
Kieff.  Bruce,  his  cigar  half  swallowed,  his  hat  pushed  far 
back,  beat  time  with  his  long,  spiderlike  legs  and  arms,  and 
he  seemed  mad  enough  to  be  under  a  certain  dervishlike 
inspiration. 

He  was  himself  in  his  own  Denmark.  His  nerves  eased. 
He  reached  back  on  the  bar  for  his  seltzer  and  lemon  for 
which  a  friend  from  the  ward  had  substituted  whisky.  Half 
absently  Bruce,  his  eyes  on  Bricktop  finishing  with  a  flourish, 
lifted  the  glass  to  his  lips,  and  his  nostrils  expanded  as  his 
lips  tasted.  He  gulped  the  fire  down;  its  warmth  set  each 
red  corpuscle  in  his  blood  to  dancing  swifter  than  Brick- 
top's  legs. 

"  Have  anither,  Bruce?  " 

"  It's  on  me !  Everybody  line  up !  "  The  great  man's 
purse  leapt  out  with  his  own  words. 

"  Holy  High  Jinks,  Bruce,  lay  hold  of  yourself  and  don't 
go  crazy !  "  So,  entering  the  saloon,  speaks  Edward  Dono 
van  Butler,  better  known  as  "  Little  Butler,"  which  was  a 

23 


THE  RADICAL 

popular  tribute  paid  to  his  size.  Butler — in  such  guises  does 
Virtue  speaking  to  Temptation  come — was  political  reporter 
for  the  Democrat  and  a  one  time  law  partner  of  Bruce 
McAllister.  Out  of  the  pit  had  they  scrambled  together,  and 
although  their  professions  had  parted,  their  sentiments  and 
their  hearts  still  battled  on  side  by  side  for  the  same  cause. 

"  Glad  you  came,  Ed ;  you're  in  time  to  join  the  bunch." 
Bruce  grinned  down  on  the  blithe  little  reporter  whose  face 
looked  as  if  it  had  been  made  by  an  avalanche  rolling  from 
the  top  of  his  large  head,  pulling  his  forehead,  his  long  nose, 
and  his  long  chin  and  jaw  down  with  it  in  the  process  of 
rolling. 

With  a  generosity  that  became  greatness  he  tossed  a  bill 
on  the  bar.  His  Satanic  majesty  was  having  an  easier  time 
of  it  with  Bruce,  despite  the  presence  of  Virtue  scowling  and 
protesting  there,  than  he  had  had  for  many  a  long  day. 
Corks  popped ;  bottles  opened,  and  to  such  music  the  hero  as 
soloist  sings,  a  little  more  automatic  if  less  musical  than  the 
harp,  "There'll  Be  a  Hot  Time  in  the  Old  Town  To 
night."  His  audience,  sport,  grafter,  rascal,  petty  politician, 
drunkard  and  genuine  good  fellow,  commends  his  versatility. 
"  By  God,  it  ain't  often  a  feller  kin  spout  and  sing  too." 
"Ain't  McAllister  a  wonder?"  Answer  echo:  "I  should 
say  he  is  a  wonder." 

The  more  Bruce  drinks  the  louder  he  sings.  The  crowd, 
always  a  hero  worshipper,  takes  its  cue  from  the  leaders  and 
the  noise  is  raised  to  such  a  pitch  that  the  police  enter  to  com 
mand  quiet,  but  seeing  that  the  disturbers  are  politicians  they 
interfere  not.  Are  Jove  arid  the  gods  drinking  nectar  to  be 
interrupted  by  insignificant  myrmidons  whom  they  them 
selves  have  put  in  this  lower  sphere  of  power  ? 

Bricktop  dances  audaciously;  the  leviathan  O'Brien  imi 
tates  him,  which  transforms  clumsiness  into  humor;  and  he 

24 


A   FALL  FROM  GRACE 

tumbles  on  the  floor,  which  transforms  humor  into  a  frenzy ! 
It  was  the  signal — and  what  was  not — for  more  corks  to 
pop  out  of  more  bottles.  The  friend  of  the  people,  quite 
responsive  now  to  Satan's  beck,  filled  his  glass  again  and 
again,  and  passed  into  his  power.  He  becomes  a  sort  of 
dilettante  Faust,  of  which  this  world  is  so  full,  who  signs  his 
soul  away  for  a  night's  enjoyment  in  its  Protean  shapes.  On 
the  morrow,  never  fear,  these  sinners  will  bend  their  eyes 
toward  the  gods,  the  better,  they  think,  for  having  met  evil 
face  to  face,  pitied,  endured  but  refused  to  embrace. 

The  music  and  dancing  quickened,  the  drinking  tried  to 
keep  pace  with  both,  and  none  knows  whether  or  not  the  stars 
would  have  seen  the  end  of  the  bout  if  Bricktop  Anderson 
had  not  suggested  that  there  was  to  be  a  cock  fight  way  over 
in  the  Northwest  side.  Drink  is  usually  but  a  prelude  to 
the  play,  the  means  to  an  end ;  here  was  a  proper  end  and  the 
crowd's  sporting  blood  was  up.  It  would  have  bet  on  any 
thing  that  had  two  sides  and  they  declared  for  Bricktop's 
idea.  Cabs  were  hailed;  and  in  the  first  of  these  chariots, 
his  hat  far  to  one  side,  his  head  far  to  another,  his  vest  open, 
ridiculing  Virtue's  voice  protesting  still,  sat  the  man  capable 
of  transporting  audiences  to  the  empyrean. 

The  simple  home  of  the  McAllister  family  invites  us 
next.  Concerning  its  interior  we  pause  merely  long  enough 
to  remark  that  all  the  evidences  of  refinement  are  due 
to  the  artistic  hand  of  Elaine  McAllister.  The  taste  of 
Bruce,  as  has  been  hinted  before,  is  no  optimistic  argument 
for  the  part  that  art  some  day  may  play  in  the  so-called  com 
ing  democracy. 

Delicate,  small  featured,  esthetic,  one  would  have  found 

it  hard  to  believe  that  Elaine  was  Bruce's  sister,  but  nature 

is  no  less  fond  of  putting  entirely  different  persons  in  the 

same  family  than  of  putting  opposite  qualities  in  the  same 

3  25 


THE   RADICAL 

heart.  We  may  gaze  on  that  pale  face  as  long  as  we  will, 
studying  it  to  our  heart's  content  as  she  lies  there  fast  asleep 
on  the  lounge  in  the  sitting  room,  a  light  red  woolen  cover 
let  thrown  across  her  shoulders.  On  the  floor  is  the  book 
that  has  slipped  out  of  her  hand — we  take  care  not  to  men 
tion  its  title  lest  it  be  believed  that  professional  jealousy  in 
duces  us  to  charge,  by  innuendo,  that  a  fellow-author  is  a 
soporific. 

Moreover,  justice  compels  us  to  say  that  it  was  the  long 
vigil  of  the  night  and  not  the  book  that  was  responsible  for 
her  slumber.  She  had  been  sitting  up  for  hours  wTith  the 
invalid  mother,  waiting  for  the  head  of  the  family  to  put  in 
his  appearance  and  announce  how  he  had  covered  himself 
with  glory  by  putting  his  enemy  to  oratorical  flight.  Peter 
McAllister — like  the  rest  of  the  world  we  may  hear  from 
him  later  on — had  sought  his  couch,  worn  out  from  his  toil 
of  the  day  as  chemist  in  the  "  Yards  "  and  by  the  original 
research  work  he  had  done  that  night.  Peter  was  either  too 
indifferent  to  care  whether  Bruce  had  disarmed  his  adver 
sary  in  this  trial  by  words,  or  his  faith  may  have  been  too 
great  to  have  admitted  of  any  doubt. 

The  stars  were  growing  pale  in  the  skies  when  the  chariot 
that  bore  our  hero  drove  to  the  house.  He  staggered  to 
ward  the  door  with  an  indirection  that  made  walking  a  more 
complicated  than  pleasing  art.  His  search  for  his  key  was 
an  acrobatic  performance,  and  although  he  did  not  succeed 
in  finding  it,  he  had  the  satisfaction  of  twisting  himself  into 
every  possible  combination  that  his  bones  and  muscles  were 
capable  of  forming,  and  meanwhile  he  made  noise  enough 
to  have  accompanied  the  storming  of  a  fort,  let  alone  the 
opening  of  a  door. 

Mrs.  McAllister,  barely  dozing  in  her  restless  fashion, 
was  aroused  by  the  disturbance  and  sat  upright  in  her  bed  to 

26 


A  FALL  FROM  GRACE 

determine  its  cause.  Neither  Peter  nor  Elaine  proving  at  all 
responsive  to  it  and  not  wishing  to  awaken  either  of  them 
from  their  sound  slumbers — trust  an  invalid  mother  to  pay 
deference  to  nature's  best  gift  of  health ! — she  dragged  herself 
out  of  her  bed  and  to  the  door  that  stood  as  a  stone  wall 
before  the  triumphant  march  of  the  all-conquering  Bruce. 

"  Damn  door  'ith  a  wall — have  it  changed  to-morrow," 
he  hicked,  proud  of  his  discernment,  as  he  rolled  between  the 
two  walls  of  the  narrow  hall  and  through  the  door  on  the 
right-hand  side  into  the  parlor.  Mrs.  McAllister  put  the 
night  lamp  on  the  marble-topped  table  and  sank  back  into 
a  rocking  chair,  breathing  heavily.  Bruce  looked  at  his  in 
valid  mother,  bewildered.  He  dropped  his  crushed  hat  on 
the  floor  and  rubbed  a  questioning  palm  over  his  hot  head. 
Then  he  arose  and  stood  as  if  petrified,  fastening  his  bleary 
eyes  on  that  dear  face,  wasted  and  thin. 

"  Andy,  O  Andy!  "  murmured  Mrs.  McAllister  in  mild 
expostulation,  as  if  her  dead  husband  had  come  to  life  again 
and  was  standing  there  before  her,  intoxicated.  The  condi 
tion  of  Bruce  had  pushed  her,  like  a  blow,  to  the  verge  of 
the  delirious. 

Bruce  was  shocked  into  sobriety.  It  was  as  if  he  had 
become  a  child  again,  clinging  to  his  mother's  hand  on  the 
occasion  of  one  of  his  father's  dreadful  homecomings.  Had 
he  stepped  into  Andrew  McAllister's  shoes  merely  to  prolong 
his  mother's  insufferable  torture?  He  burst  into  tears,  and 
falling  down  on  his  knees  before  her,  buried  his  head  in  her 
lap,  while  her  pitying,  gentle,  forgiving  hands  stroked  his 
coarse,  black  hair. 

"  Mother,"  he  moaned,  "  forgive  me  if  you  can ;  for  God's 
sake,  try  to  forgive  me!  I'll  never  drink  another  drop  of 
liquor  in  all  my  life  again." 

He  kept  his  word. 

27 


CHAPTER   IV 

THE   LIFE   AND   ADVENTURES   OF   ADDISON 
HAMMERSMITH 

BRAINS  were  defeated  by  money  in  the  competition  for 
a  seat  in  the  city  council.  This,  say  some,  proves 
the  wisdom  of  destiny;  otherwise  brains  would  have 
found  themselves  forlorn  among  strangers  and  snubbed. 
Half-a-dozen  causes,  foremost  of  which  stood  Bruce  Mc 
Allister's  fantastic  radicalism  and  the  influence  of  Addison 
Hammersmith's  family,  were  responsible  for  our  hero's  de 
feat,  but  being  interested  in  his  net  results  and  not  in  con 
tributory  causes,  we  pass  them  by. 

Bruce  took  his  defeat  philosophically;  he  believed  in  his 
star,  and  its  temporary  obscuration  meant  nothing — a  ray  of 
light  more  or  less — in  the  final  blaze  of  glory  which  was  to 
illumine  him.  One  sees  the  value  of  every  young  man's 
choosing  a  star;  whether  or  not  it  will  let  him  hitch  his 
wagon  to  it  is  another  question. 

Elaine,  who  was  punctilious,  insisted  that  her  brother  call 
on  Addison  and  congratulate  him  on  his  victory,  and  Bruce 
acquiesced  with  a  surprising  alacrity;  the  reason  for  it  being 
that  he  wished  to  do  so,  anyway,  for  Addison  and  he  had  been 
schoolmates.  Bruce  McAllister  and  Addison  Hammersmith 
met  for  the  first  time  in  the  evening  law  school  that  both 
attended.  Class  politics  made  them  fair  friends,  for  when 
Bruce  ran  for  president  of  the  debating  club  he  arranged  a 

28 


THE  ADVENTURES   OF  HAMMERSMITH 

deal  whereby  Addison,  who  wras  popular  on  account  of  his 
good  nature,  was  to  run  for  the  position  of  vice-president. 
Addison,  who  was  not  a  born  politician  by  any  means,  always 
felt  that  he  was  indebted  to  Bruce  for  this  honor,  not  seeing 
that  the  lending  of  his  name  to  the  ticket  put  Bruce  in  his 
debt.  Beyond  this,  however,  they  had  been  on  the  same  side 
of  debate  often  enough,  and  Bruce's  suggestions  and  his  more 
direct  aid  had  helped  Addison  to  appear  to  advantage  and  to 
make  a  good  impression ;  so  Addison  admired  Bruce  for  his 
kindliness  and  his  talents,  although  he  considered  him  un 
couth  and  even  downright  vulgar. 

They  were  just  as  opposite  as  any  two  people  on  earth 
could  be,  but  despite  that  fact  they  might  have  been  the 
warmest  friends  in  the  world  if  Bruce  had  not  held  himself 
aloof  and  looked  askance  at  the  advances  that  Addison  made 
in  his  kind-hearted  manner;  for  the  truth  is  that  Bruce 
McAllister  was  far  more  prejudiced  against  Addison  on  ac 
count  of  that  ingenuous  youth's  aristocratic  bearing  and  his 
wealth  than  Addison  was  against  Bruce  on  account  of  his 
pronounced  faults  and  his  poverty.  When  Addison  heard 
Bruce  hold  forth  in  the  debating  club  on  the  themes  nearest 
and  dearest  to  his  heart,  when  he  listened  to  Bruce's  copious 
flow  of  words  and  ideas,  he  forgot  all  about  Bruce's  short 
comings  and  he  was  proud  of  his  acquaintance.  He  gazed  at 
him  in  admiration  and  he  wished  to  heaven  that  his  natural 
gifts  had  been  one  half — no  by  thunder,  as  he  told  all  the 
fellows,  one  hundredth  as  great.  Bruce  was  not  so  broad 
of  mind  and  he  was  blind  to  many  of  the  virtues  shining  so 
openly  on  the  cloth  of  gold  that  covered  Addison's  really 
warm  and  generous  heart. 

"  Come  to  see  me,  McAllister,  old  chap,"  he  would  say 
in  his  bluff,  but  finely  mannered  way;  "  come  to  see  me  any 
time.  I'll  make  you  welcome  as  can  be." 

29 


THE   RADICAL 

"  Yes,  I  will,"  Bruce  would  answer,  but  he  never  came, 
and  as  even  those  answers  were  rather  curt,  Addison  felt 
that  his  hospitality  was  poorly  rewarded,  and  he  gave  it  all 
over,  thinking  Bruce  more  or  less  a  cad,  which,  according  to 
your  point  of  view,  was  more  or  less  true. 

For  so  young  a  man  Addison  had  had  a  varied  if  not  an 
exciting  career,  and  his  biography  is  perhaps  humorous  even 
though  its  incidents  are  perhaps  commonplace.  He  had 
spent  three  years  at  Yale — in  the  freshman  class — may  this 
not  show  his  patience?  His  fond  mother  attributed  Addi 
son's  lack  of  progress  to  the  obtuseness  of  Addison's  pro 
fessors  rather  than  to  her  son's  lack  of  brilliancy.  Addison's 
brilliancy  may  remain  to  be  proved ;  but  the  obtuseness  of 
university  professors 

Addison  tried  commerce  immediately  after  the  university 
was  done  with  him,  going  to  work  in  his  father's  immense 
hardware  store ;  but  his  natural  inclination  was  not  for  a  busi 
ness  life,  and  he  gave  it  up  after  a  trial  of  three  weeks,  thus 
showing  that  his  mind  was  quick  to  reach  a  conclusion.  He 
then  suggested  to  his  father  that  he  be  sent  over  to  Europe 
for  a  long  journey  to  complete  his  education,  which  shows 
his  resourcefulness;  but  his  father  insisted  that  the  finest 
culture  is  gained  from  experience  and  hard  work,  and  so, 
much  against  his  will,  Addison  was  forced  to  begin  his  career 
as  a  banker.  He  started  in  the  humble  position  of  collector, 
showing  how  free  he  was  from  false  pride,  but  the  cashier 
was  unreasonable  and  found  fault  with  the  manner  in  which 
Addison  did  business;  for  it  would  seem  the  new  employee 
paid  nine  dollars  a  week  for  cab  hire — his  salary  was  exactly 
five — to  expedite  the  delivery  of  his  collection  notices;  and 
the  said  cashier  thought  that  this  was  setting  a  bad  example 
to  the  other  young  men  to  whom  even  car-fare  was  a  luxury. 
The  world  is  unjust,  and  Addison,  who  had  been  endeavor- 

30 


THE  ADVENTURES   OF  HAMMERSMITH 

ing  to  establish  a  higher  standard  of  living,  was  discharged 
for  his  fine  efforts. 

He  now  presented  the  anomaly  of  a  man  glad  to  lose  his 
job.  He  caught  a  glimmer  of  the  fascinating  boulevards  of 
Paris,  of  the  luxurious  clubs  of  Pall  Mall,  of  the  seven  hills 
of  Rome,  but  the  father  again  pulled  the  curtain  over  that 
delightful  picture  by  his  commonplace  views  on  the  relation 
of  hard  work  to  youthful  morality.  Choosing  at  random, 
which  shows  his  versatility,  Addison  hit  on  law,  and  in  order 
to  keep  his  days  free  he  went  to  night  school,  believing,  for 
one  thing,  that  his  father  might  relent  if  he  saw  him  return 
home  belated  and  fagged  out,  and  that,  his  hard  heart  soften 
ing,  he  might  send  him  to  Europe  for  recuperation  if  not  for 
culture;  and  for  another  thing,  on  looking  at  the  subject, 
Addison  found  the  entrance  requirements  of  the  night  law 
schools  were  easier  than  those  of  the  day  institutions ;  which 
proves  that  Addison  was  easily  contented.  Law,  after  six 
months  lost  what  little  attraction  the  subject  had  for  Addi 
son — it  rarely  attracts  poetical  minds — and  Addison  took  his 
father  into  his  confidence  and  confessed  that  he  was  not  of  a 
legal  bent,  which  led  his  angry  senior  to  ask  sarcastically 
how  in  the  mischief  he  was  bent,  which  led  Addison  to 
shrug  his  shoulders,  which  leads  me  to  hint  at  his  extreme 
modesty. 

Again  came  the  vision  and  the  dream.  O  Rome!  O 
Paris!  O  London!  But  the  rhapsody  died  away  on  Addi- 
son's  lips  when  his  father  grunted  out  that  he  would  have  to 
don  blue  overalls  and  roll  nail-kegs  across  the  wooden  floors ; 
for  Mr.  Hammersmith,  Sr.,  believed  that  one  ought  to  begin 
at  the  very  bottom,  while  Addison  held  that  one  ought  to 
begin  at  the  top,  which  showed  that  the  youth  was  ambitious. 
His  mother,  who  had  saved  the  boy  from  severe  discipline 
thrice,  suggested  a  political  career,  pointing  out  to  her  hus- 

31 


THE   RADICAL 

band  in  her  diplomatic  manner  that  Addison — she  took  him 
at  his  word — had  distinguished  himself  in  the  debating  club, 
and  that  this,  together  with  his  other  native  talents,  was 
bound  to  open  a  great  career  for  him  in  a  field  where  oratory 
counted  for  so  much.  Addison  turned  pale  at  the  thought, 
having  an  inborn  horror  for  a  contact  and  association  with 
low-born  crowds,  but  between  hearing  his  voice  thunder  in 
the  halls  of  city  councils  and  national  and  state  legislatures, 
and  hearing  the  thud  of  nail-kegs  on  a  hard  floor,  he  decided 
without  any  hesitation  for  the  former,  which  goes  to  show 
his  fine  taste,  his  wisdom,  and  his  obedience  to  his  mother. 

Mrs.  Hammersmith  was  now  ready  for  a  consultation 
with  the  mayor — his  wife  had  high  social  ambitions  and  Mrs. 
Hammersmith's  door  was  at  the  very  entrance  of  the  royal 
road  thereto — and  that  gentleman  told  her,  with  all  the 
disinterestedness  in  the  world,  that  when  young  men  of 
Addison's  breeding,  education,  and  abilities  were  willing  to 
enter  the  arena  of  politics  to  take  issue  with  the  riff-raff 
and  the  lower  elements,  it  argued  well  for  the  future  of 
America.  He  even  went  so  far  as  to  hint  that  by  dint  of  a 
little  maneuvering  he  could  get  her  estimable  son  the  Repub 
lican  nomination  for  the  aldermanship  of  his  ward,  which 
so  delighted  the  fond  mother  that  she  immediately  sent  the 
mayor's  wife  an  invitation  for  her  next  reception,  which  so 
delighted  our  good  lady  in  turn,  that  she  acknowledged  for 
the  first  time  in  her  life  the  mayoralty  was  good  for  some 
thing  after  all. 

Thereupon,  the  mayor  telephoned  to  the  Right  Honorable 
Buck  O'Brien,  the  Republican  boss,  and  to  put  the  matter  to 
you  as  bluntly  as  Buck  himself  put  it  to  the  mayor,  there 
was  no  reason  why  the  affair  could  not  be  fixed  if  Hammer 
smith,  Sr.  would  come  down  with  the  coin.  The  amount 
of  coin  to  come  down  was  the  sole  bone  of  contention,  Buck 

32 


THE   ADVENTURES  OF  HAMMERSMITH 

declaring  that  he  knew  enough  to  stay  outside  when  it  prom 
ised  to  rain  gold,  and  that  it  might  as  well  be  a  deluge  as  a 
drop,  since  old  Hammersmith  had  such  excellent  qualifica 
tions  for  a  rain-maker.  The  mayor  insisted  that  a  shower 
was  enough ;  and  Buck  finally  agreed  to  take  a  wetting  since 
he  could  not  get  the  auriferous  drenching  he  craved. 

Bruce  chose  a  raw,  cold  night  for  his  duty  call,  and  since 
he  started  long  ahead  of  time,  he  found  himself  in  front  of  the 
Hammersmith  residence  with  an  awkward  thirty  minutes  on 
his  hands.  He  started  in  by  admiring  the  architecture  of  the 
huge  pile,  varying  from  the  severely  classical  to  the  renais 
sance  and  modern,  so  you  will  see  that  there  was  plenty  for 
one  of  Bruce's  crude,  unformed  taste  to  study.  Kimberly, 
the  architect  who  lost  the  contract,  said  it  would  take  him 
the  better  part  of  a  day  to  point  out  the  faults  of  the  facade 
alone. 

Tiring  of  counting  the  chimneys  and  the  windows,  Bruce 
turned  away  and  walked  a  few  blocks  eastward  toward  the 
lake,  and  perching  himself  on  the  sea  wall  he  looked  out  on 
the  swirl  of  the  waters,  churning  and  roaring  shoreward,  and 
he  gazed  up  at  the  deep,  blue  sky,  almost  velvety,  so  thick  and 
impenetrable  was  the  blue  of  it,  and  at  the  stars  twinkling 
calmly  and  peacefully,  undisturbed  by  the  howling  of  the 
waters.  A  few  minutes  satisfied  him  and  he  arose  mumbling : 
"  That's  it!  What  does  Nature  care  for  us?  Not  one  bit! 
We  starve  and  we  suffer  and  we  die,  and  it's  all  one  to  her." 

He  walked  on  and  on,  his  hands  clasped  behind  his  back, 
his  shoulders  stooped,  his  large  head  inclined  forward 
slightly,  a  woe-begone  expression  on  his  dark  face  as  if  all  the 
misery  of  the  world  were  weighing  on  his  shoulders,  as  if 
the  wail  of  the  winds  on  the  lake  were  the  voices  of  the  hun 
gry  and  the  poor,  calling  out  to  him  to  right  their  wrongs. 
He  came  to  a  halt  suddenly,  in  the  darkness  of  an  area  that 

33 


THE   RADICAL 

the  lamp  lights  left  undisturbed,  and  sweeping  his  long  arms 
out  circlewise  he  muttered :  "  Who  am  I  that  you  continu 
ally  ask  me  to  take  up  your  cause?  God  Almighty,  can't  I 
be  left  in  peace?  I'm  not  the  man  for  it,  I  tell  you!  There 
are  fellows  better  fitted  for  the  task ;  get  them." 

That  very  second  he  burst  out  into  a  short  cluck  of  a 
laugh  as  if  he  had  caught  himself  playing  a  little  comedy  for 
his  own  amusement,  and  he  drew  out  his  watch  as  if  to  di 
vert  his  thoughts.  Seeing  from  its  face  that  the  hour  of  his 
call  had  come,  he  hastened  his  steps  to  the  home  of  the  Ham 
mersmiths  and  rang  the  front  doorbell  with  something  like 
nervous  dread. 

"  I  wonder,"  he  muttered  to  himself,  "  if  they  would 
let  me  in  the  front  door  if  they  knew  I  used  to  deliver  meat 
at  the  back?  " 


34 


CHAPTER   V 

BRAINS    BOW    TO    WEALTH 

WHILE  Bruce  McAllister  was  cooling  his  heels  out  of 
doors  Mr.  Addison  Hammersmith  had  been  far  less 
comfortable  within;  for  if  eight  o'clock  was  the 
hour  that  troubled  Bruce  the  thought  of  nine  made  Addison's 
flesh  creep  and  his  nerves  tingle;  for  when  that  hour  came, 
the  newly  elected  Republican  alderman  was  to  be  surprised  by 
a  huge  demonstration  to  be  given  in  his  honor  by  the  Sun 
flower  Republican  Social  and  Political  Club — an  affair 
which  would  have  been  kept  perfectly  secret  if  it  had  not 
leaked  out. 

Of  course  an  extemporaneous  speech  was  expected  and 
Addison — forewarned  is  forearmed — was  doing  his  level  best 
to  get  his  address  in  shape.  If  there  was  anything  Addison 
hated,  and  there  were  few  things  he  condescended  to  like, 
that  thing  was  a  speech,  for  he  was  not  a  born  orator,  al 
though  in  one  respect  at  least  he  reminded  one  of  Demos 
thenes — when  he  spoke  his  mouth  seemed  filled  with  pebbles. 

Addison  had  been  for  putting  a  ban  on  this  surprise  party 
of  the  club,  but  his  mother  shook  her  head  and  said  that  such 
conduct  would  be  ungracious,  and  so  he  was  obliged  to  accept 
the  visit  in  the  same  spirit  of  thankfulness  with  which  a 
child  swallows  a  pill,  believing  rather  in  the  wisdom  of  its 
elder  than  in  the  efficacy  of  the  medicine. 

"  This  is  a  very  discouraging  world,"  sighed  Addison, 
35 


THE  RADICAL 

"  and  I  wish  that  I  had  never  been  born  into  it."  Addison 
had  been  born  discouraged  and  his  discouragement  waxed 
with  his  age ;  although  why  and  about  what  he  was  discour 
aged,  it  would  be  hard  to  find  out.  It  is  possible  that  his 
discouragement  may  have  arisen  from  the  fact  that  fortune 
had  chosen  him  for  her  favorite  child,  and  that  consequently 
there  was  little  that  he  could  do  for  himself;  but  this  view 
of  the  case,  however,  is  too  ungrateful  to  dame  Fortune  to 
be  just  to  Addison.  But,  whatever  the  reason,  Addison  got 
as  far  as,  "  Fellow-citizens,  it  would  indeed  be  difficult  for 
me  to  tell  you  how  delighted  I  am  with  this  entirely  un 
expected  honor,"  and  five  times  he  yawned,  threw  himself 
into  the  arms  of  discouragement  and  buried  his  straw-colored 
head  in  the  crimson  and  gold  cushions  of  the  huge  divan 
on  the  dais.  It  may  be,  to  weary  your  patience  for  the  last 
time,  that  the  luxury  of  the  room  was  discouraging  to  the 
flow  of  those  noble  thoughts  which  simplicity  alone  is  said 
to  induce ;  for  the  palatial  proportions  of  that  Italian-Renais 
sance  music  room  with  its  fine  fireplace  over  which  a  life- 
size  portrait  of  Beethoven  hung,  with  its  richly  decorated 
ceiling  beams,  its  fantastically  carved  door  posts,  its  Flemish 
tapestries,  its  crimson  velvet  curtains  hanging  in  straight 
folds,  with  its  ornate  candelabra,  its  gilded  fauteuils — but 
enough  has  been  said  to  show  that  if  Addison  insisted  upon 
being  disturbed  there  was  plenty  in  that  room  to  put  him 
out. 

Therefore  the  servant's  announcement  that  Mr.  Bruce 
McAllister  was  in  waiting  came  to  Addison  with  a  huge 
sense  of  relief,  not  only  because  his  wearied  brain  yearned  for 
distraction,  but  because  he  was  glad  to  see  Bruce  for  the  mere 
sake  of  seeing  him.  "  Show  him  right  up,"  he  ordered  cheer 
fully. 

Bruce,   timid   in   the   face  of  such  swaggering  luxury, 

36 


BRAINS   Bow  TO  WEALTH 

walked  nervously  through  the  oblong  hall,  fearful  lest  his 
shoulders  come  in  contact  with  the  rich  Gobelin  tapestries 
and  they  resent  it,  and  so  made  his  way  to  the  room  to  which 
the  lackey  led  him. 

"  I  am  so  glad  to  see  you,  old  fellow,"  said  Addison 
jumping  up  to  extend  a  warm  and  a  welcoming  hand. 

"  I  came  to  extend  my  congratulations,"  said  Bruce,  still 
bashful,  and  angry  at  himself  for  feeling  so. 

"  Well,  that's  very  generous  of  you.  I  appreciate  it.  It 
may  not  sound  sincere ;  but  I  wish  you'd  won,  upon  my  word 
I  do.  This  speech-making,  hand-shaking  business  with  a 
crowd  of  low  foreigners  isn't  in  my  line.  The  whole  thing 
is  a  dreadful  bore.  Believe  me,  I  so  wanted  to  be  defeated 
and  take  a  jaunt  in  Europe." 

"  I  should  think  you  would  be  very  happy  over  your  suc 
cess,"  consoled  Bruce,  shifting  uneasily  on  the  edge  of  his 
fauteuil ;  "  it  ought  to  give  you  a  great  opportunity." 

"  To  uplift  the  world,  eh?  "  yawned  Addison. 

Bruce  nodded  absently,  trying  to  accustom  himself  to 
the  new  surroundings,  to  analyze  its  parts  in  order  to  discover 
what  made  the  splendor  and  glamour  of  the  whole. 

"  Oh,  that's  all  rot!  I'm  sick  of  hearing  the  words 
'  franchise '  and  '  paved  streets.'  What  do  I  care  whether 
the  streets,  between  you  and  me,  are  paved  with  gold  or  just 
mud  ?  I  wasn't  brought  up  for  a  contractor.  And  I  don't 
see  whose  business  it  is  if  the  street  cars  charge  ten  cents  or 
three  for  a  fare.  If  the  people  don't  like  it  let  'em  walk — 
that's  all  there  is  to  it,  let  'em  walk ;  exercise  is  healthy." 

Addison  paced  up  and  down  the  bright  Persian  rugs  and 
drew  to  a  halt  in  front  of  the  great  fireplace;  the  electric 
lights  in  the  tall  candlesticks  throwing  over  Addison's  face 
a  glow  that  was  subdued  by  the  metal  shades  fashioned  in  the 
shape  of  crowns  held  by  cupids.  The  strong  contrast  be- 

37 


THE   RADICAL 

tween  the  patrician  host  and  his  plebeian  guest  was  thus 
made  the  more  striking.  Bruce,  swarthy,  tall  and  gaunt, 
coarse  of  feature;  Addison,  blond  to  the  color  of  straw,  pink 
of  cheek,  small  and  refined  of  feature,  round  and  short. 

Addison  went  on,  his  hands  thrust  in  the  depths  of  his 
trouser  pockets:  "  You  don't  know  what  people  expect  of 
rich  men's  sons.-  It's  all  that  cursed  American  idea  that 
everybody  is  the  equal  of  everybody  else  and  that  all  must 
work.  Bah!  What  we  need,  I  think,  is  an  aristocracy; 
more  seclusion,  and  less  of  this  awful  vulgarity.  Equality 
and  liberty  are  all  right;  I  believe  in  them  as  much  as  any 
body,  but  at  the  same  time  I  want  people  to  know  their 
places." 

A  mad  desire  to  burst  out  into  a  guffaw  seized  Bruce 
and  he  bit  his  lip  and  fixed  his  attention  to  a  deciphering  of 
the  musicians'  and  authors'  names  which  were  carved  on  the 
heavy  oak  beams  that  divided  the  ceiling  into  thirds. 

"  I  don't  know  what  America  is  coming  to,  I  swear  I 
don't,  McAllister.  Why,  do  you  know  what  wras  expected 
of  me  in  this  last  election?  I  had  to  go  in  low  bar-rooms 
and  drink  and  hobnob  with  a  lot  of  foreigners  and  loafers 
that  I  wouldn't  have  looked  at  the  day  before — just  to  get 
their  votes." 

There  was  a  light  step  and  the  frou-frou  of  silks  in  the 
hall,  and  Addison  interrupted  his  tirade  to  remark:  "  It's  my 
mother;  I'm  glad  she's  coming  in." 

Mrs.  Hammersmith  entered.  Bruce  was  flurried  by  the 
appearance  of  this  graceful  woman,  very  beautiful,  he 
thought,  with  her  chestnut  hair,  threaded  with  silver,  her 
cameolike  features,  her  unwrinkled  cheeks,  and  her  fine  bear 
ing.  "  I'm  so  glad  to  see  you  again,"  she  said  to  Bruce  in 
her  musical  voice,  extending  her  richly  jeweled  hand.  He 
stammered  out  his  acknowledgments  and  congratulations. 

38 


BRAINS   Bow  TO   WEALTH 

"  Oh,  yes,"  she  went  on,  "  we  are  all  very  happy  over 
Addison's  success,  and  we  are  all  sorry  that  the  loser  had  to 
be  you.  It  would  seem  to  be  too  bad  in  such  cases  that  one's 
happiness  must  be  at  the  expense  of  another's  sorrow.  It 
ought  to  be  so  arranged,  I  think,  that  everybody  should  win." 

Somehow  Bruce  was  beginning  to  feel  at  home,  for  the 
queer  indescribable  sensation  of  discomfort  was  leaving  him. 
There  was  a  moment's  lull  in  the  conversation  which  Bruce 
occupied  to  the  full  in  comparing  Addison  with  his  mother, 
rather  baffled  by  the  mystery  that  gave  such  a  son  to  such  a 
mother,  and  which  Mrs.  Hammersmith  spent  in  studying 
Bruce;  it  can't  be  said  that  the  result  of  the  study  pleased 
her  particularly. 

"  I  hope,"  said  Mrs.  Hammersmith,  rising,  "  that  my  son 
will  always  be  animated  by  those  same  noble  principles  which 
you  have  so  clearly  expressed  in  your  speeches  and  your  writ 
ings.  I  am  quite  sure  that,  though  you  and  Addison  are  of 
entirely  different  theories,  both  of  you  will  be  true  to  the 
highest  ideals,"  and  so  saying  she  disappeared — the  very  word 
to  describe  her  movement — from  the  room. 

"  I  wonder  how  much  of  all  that  she  meant,"  thought 
the  skeptical  Bruce. 

"  Noble  principles!  Fine  purposes!  High  ideals!" 
yawned  Addison ;  "  I  am  so  tired  of  hearing  those  confounded 
words  that  I  wish  they  had  never  been  invented.  If  I  ever 
write  a  dictionary — I  never  shall — I  will  leave  out " 

Addison  ceased  his  scolding  suddenly,  his  pink  cheeks 
flushed  red,  and  the  startled  attitude  assumed  by  his  short 
stout  body  seemed  to  scent  disaster  in  the  wind.  The  tri 
umphant  notes  of  "Hail!  the  Conquering  Hero!"  came 
shrill  and  piercing  from  the  instruments  of  a  band  that  was 
playing  for  all  it  was  worth  on  the  lawn  in  front  of  the 
house. 

39 


THE   RADICAL 

"Oh,  heavens!"  moaned  Addison,  "there's  that  awful 
club  and  I  don't  know  one  word  of  my  speech." 

Bruce,  biting  his  underlip  to  restrain  a  laugh,  arose  to 
leave;  but  Addison  plucked  him  by  the  sleeve  and  pleaded, 
"  No,  don't  go,  I  beg  of  you ;  stay  here  and  see  me  through 
this  bad  piece  of  business.  I  suppose  that  crowd  of  ruffians 
will  storm  the  house,  just  as  if  they  belonged  here.  Well,  it 
will  show  my  mother  a  thing  or  two  about  noble  principles, 
high  ideals  and  all  of  that  rot." 

Bruce  sat  down  again,  fixing  his  eyes  on  the  decorated 
ceiling;  Addison  walked  up  and  down  the  room  excitedly, 
twirling  his  key-ring  around  his  thumb,  clutching  for  words 
to  put  into  his  speech  of  welcome. 

The  band  ceased  playing  with  a  suddenness  as  startling 
to  Addison  as  that  with  which  it  had  begun,  and  the  motley 
throng,  with  Buck  O'Brien  at  the  head,  defied  the  footman 
at  the  entrance  and  pushed  pell-mell  into  the  wide  reception 
hall  and  the  spacious  drawing-rooms,  each  man  afraid  that 
his  fellows  would  conspire  to  shut  him  out. 

The  portly  Mr.  Hammersmith,  dignified  and  grave, 
stroked  his  florid  gray  whiskers  solemnly  and  bade  the  crowd 
welcome  in  the  name  of  his  wife,  his  son  and  himself;  but 
his  greeting  was  so  formal  and  stiff,  so  lacking  in  generous 
spontaneity  that  it  was  easy  to  see  that  his  mind  was  busy 
estimating  the  cost  and  the  damage  of  the  reception  rather 
than  the  pleasure  it  would  give  to  the  receiving  and  the  re 
ceived.  Mrs.  Hammersmith  met  the  common  herd  as  beam 
ingly  and  as  becomingly  as  if  every  one  of  them  had  been 
an  exclusive  member  of  her  exclusive  set,  and  Addison  stood 
by  with  a  fixed  and  studied  smile,  and  shook  the  hands  of 
the  host  that  crowded  around  him  for  this  high  honor,  his 
mind  afar  from  it  on  the  speech  of  welcome  that  still  stub 
bornly  refused  to  clothe  itself  in  words. 

40 


BRAINS   Bow  TO   WEALTH 

Streaks  of  mud  and  mire  on  Persian  rugs,  white  bear  and 
tawny  tiger  skins,  showed  plainly  where  democracy  had  taken 
pains  to  go  out  of  its  way  to  meet  aristocracy ;  a  huge  Chinese 
vase,  with  an  affrighted  mandarin  clinging  to  its  exterior, 
was  almost  tossed  to  the  floor  by  rude  Caucasian  shoulders 
(race  prejudice  will  out!),  and  a  Greek  girl  in  the  state  that 
nature  probably  made  her  (Thorwaldsen  was  her  creator) 
was  brought  so  closely  in  contact  with  our  refined  modern 
civilization  that  she  was  almost  overcome  by  the  shame  and 
the  shock ;  a  Japanese  screen,  an  inlaid  tea  table,  and  a  Turk 
ish  tabouret — but  suffice  it  to  say  that  not  one  thing  went 
down  in  the  death  that  threatened  everything. 

"  Rimimber  yer  manners  fer  th'  love  av  Gawd!  "  yelled 
Buck  as  he  caught  sight  of  the  cranes  on  the  screen  bending 
a  startled  flight  toward  the  floor.  "  An'  as  fer  you,  Larry 
Flannigan,  I'd  have  ye  rimimber  them  gilt  vases  ain't  to  be 
taken  home  fer  souvinirs." 

"  Speech !  Speech !  "  went  up  in  a  cry  that  threatened  to 
bring  the  ceiling  down  on  the  floor,  and  to  toss  its  polished 
oak  beams  on  the  heads  of  the  mob  upon  which  they  looked 
with  disdain. 

Addison,  a  signal  from  his  mother  beseeching  him  to  save 
the  house  of  his  father  from  destruction  by  his  eloquence, 
launched  out : 

"  FELLOW-CITIZENS:  It  would  indeed  be  difficult  for  me 
to  express  my  surprise  and  joy  at  this  unexpected  honor. 
There  is  always  a  peculiar  delight  which  comes  from  meet 
ing  one's  own  dear  friends,  I  may  say,  in  one's  own  house. 
Fellow-citizens,  we  have  triumphed  nobly,  I  may  say.  As  a 
result  of  the  victory  of  the  great  party  to  which  I  may  say 
that  I  have  the  honor  to  belong,  we  shall  force  the  street 
railway  companies — the  street  railway  companies,  I  say — to 
4  41 


THE  RADICAL 

furnish  a  car — no,  a  seat  for  every  fare.  Fellow-citizens,  this 
is  no  more  than  just  and  right;  any  poor  man  who  pays  five 
cents  for  his  seat  is  entitled  to  sit  down.  If  companies  are 
grasping  enough  to  demand  the  streets,  we  shall  ask  for  seats. 
No  seats,  no  streets,  is  my  motto.  Fellow-citizens,  once  more 
I  welcome  you  from  the  very  bottom  of  my  heart.  As 
Shakespeare — I  believe  it  was  Shakespeare — said,  '  Be  as  our 
selves  in  Denmark ! ' ! 

Oh,  the  applause!  The  lifting  of  enthusiastic  voices! 
The  huzzahs  and  the  huzzahs!  If  an  orator  is  to  be  judged 
— and  why  shouldn't  he  be? — by  the  marks  of  approval 
which  greet  his  efforts,  we  are  willing  to  place  Addison  by 
the  side  of  Demosthenes,  to  whom  we  ventured  to  compare 
him  once  more.  Henceforth  no  timidity,  Addison;  trust 
thyself! 

It  was  at  this  very  moment  that  the  right  honorable  Buck 
O'Brien,  seizing  the  enthusiasm  at  its  height — Buck  had  an 
eye  for  dramatic  moments — responded  on  the  part  of  the 
club  with  an  oration  so  classic  that  it  would  be  a  shame  not 
to  repeat  it  for  the  benefit  of  those  who  are  constantly  up 
holding  the  ancients  at  the  expense  of  the  moderns. 

"  Our  honorable  alderman  an'  th'  lady  av  th'  house ! 
Sildum  in  th'  histree  av  th'  wurrld  has  this  ward  been  called 
on  to  arruhms  to  protict  th'  sacred  foires  av  its  altars  an' 
its  homes  agin  an  inimy  so  insidjous  to  th'  cause  av  liberty 
an'  true  freedom.  Nivir  before  did  th'  rich  an'  th'  poor 
jine  hands  to  protict  thimselves  agin  a  common  inimy — a 
greedy  corporashun  that  was  eager  to  grind  both  av  thiin 
down  to  th'  dust.  Yer  son  Addison,  mam,  has  showed  him 
self  to  be  a  worthy  represintitive  av  th'  Goddess  av  Liberty 
an'  indipindence,  fer  not  Patrick  Henry  himself,  Oireland's 
first  great  American,  was  bolder  than  him  in  th'  hour  av  his 

42 


BRAINS   Bow  TO   WEALTH 

country's  nade.  The  blood  av  his  forefathers  is  in  Addi- 
son's  veins.  Addison's  views,  mam,  on  th'  tariff  an'  th'  home 
rule  question  shows  him  imminintly  capable  av  handlin'  th' 
knotty  problem  av  strate-car  franchises  an'  kapin'  th'  strates 
clane.  With  you,  mam,  so  to  spake,  at  th'  broom,  an'  Addi- 
son  at  th'  helm,  there  is  no  rason  why  th'  strates  av  Chicago 
shouldn't  shine  like  thim  av  auld  Athens  in  th'  palmy  days 
av  Julius  Caesar.  A  new  order  av  things  is  on  th'  glorious 
way  to  its  finish.  May  Addison's  ricord  in  th'  council,  mam, 
give  yersilf  an'  Mr.  Hammersmith  no  cause  to  regrit  th' 
amount  av  hard  earned  gold  lavished  extravagantly  on  his 
etfdication  in  th'  public  schools  av  Chicago  an'  Yale.  May 
th'  ship  av  shtate  sail  on,  bearin'  Addison,  th'  poor  and  th' 
nadey,  to  th'  office  av  President  av  th'  United  States — a  job 
which  kings  might  envy  an'  quanes  desire." 


43 


CHAPTER   VI 

THE   TATTOOED   MAN 

NO,  young  Hammersmith,  I'm  juicy  enough  fer  you 
and  yer  ma  if  you  want  votes,  but  in  swell  society 
I'm  a  rotten  tomato.  You  know  what  you  can  do? 
I'll  tell  you  what  you  can  do.  You  can  go  and  pack  fog. 
Go  and  put  fogs  in  cans  until  you  learn  how  to  treat  a  gen 
tleman."  Thus,  snapping  his  dirty  fingers,  spake  Jerry  Ho- 
gan,  "  King  of  the  Bums  "  and  absolute  monarch  of  the 
lodging-house  vote,  to  Addison  in  a  corner  of  the  Ham 
mersmith  drawing-room.  Jerry  was  righteously  angry  be 
cause  Buck  O'Brien  was  commanding  exclusive  attention 
and  throwing  him  into  complete  eclipse. 

"  I'm  sorry,  Mr.  Hogan,"  said  Addison,  who  had  been 
sent  to  pacify  the  man  by  those  who  dreaded  his  power,  "  I'm 
indeed  sorry  that  you  take  umbrage;  if  Mr.  O'Brien  was 
selected  to  deliver  the  speech  it  was  not  my  fault,  I  had 
nothing  to  do  with  it." 

It  was  a  little  hard  for  Addison  to  determine  whether  or 
not  he  smelled  the  whisky  in  which  Jerry's  breath  was 
soaked  or  the  hair  oil  in  which  he  had  drenched  his  beard 
and  locks,  duly  to  honor  the  occasion.  Either  alone  was 
bad  enough,  but  both  together  were  terrible.  "  What  an 
odious  creature,"  thought  Addison ;  "  he  looks  as  if  he 
lived  in  a  sewer.  And  I  have  to  get  on  my  knees  before 
him!" 

44 


THE  TATTOOED  MAN 

"  O'Brien  selected  himself  and  that's  the  oyster  that 
selected  him,"  growled  Jerry,  "  and  I'm  going  to  get  out  of 
this !  I  didn't  want  to  come,  anyways.  What  does  a  turnip 
like  me  want  in  swell  society  ?  To  hell  with  it !  I  like  the 
plain  tamales!  I'm  going  home,"  he  ended  with  a  roar  aud 
ible  from  one  end  of  the  room  to  the  other,  "  and  youse  can 
go  and  can  fog.  Tell  your  ma  I  said  so !  " 

His  majesty,  in  kingly  disdain  of  all  furniture  and  stat 
uary  that  impeded  his  way,  reeled  toward  the  door — Addison 
was  for  calling  the  footman  to  throw  him  through  it — when 
Buck  O'Brien  himself  crossed  his  path  and  mollified  his  royal 
highness.  Buck  must  have  been  consummate  in  the  arts  of 
diplomacy,  for  a  second  later  the  king  sought  out  the  unfor 
tunate  whom  he  had  consigned  to  this  impossible  task,  put 
his  greasy  arm  around  his  neck  and  whispered :  "  It's  all 
right,  Hammersmith ;  you  ain't  such  a  poor  potato  after  all." 
On  the  wide  territory  embraced  by  the  king's  metaphors,  it 
will  be  seen  the  sun  of  poesy  could  set  easily.  "  You  and 
me  kin  run  a  bar  in  here,  trim  the  mirrors  a  bit  different, 
put  that  naked  statue  behind  a  palm,  and  make  a  first-class 
saloon  out  of  this.  Upstairs  we  can  pile  in  the  hoboes. 
There's  money  in  it.  I'm  the  onion  that  knows  what  he's 
spieling  about." 

In  his  enthusiasm  the  king  removed  his  arm,  which 
probably  resented  the  condescension,  and  Addison  escaped, 
plying  his  handkerchief  with  an  ardor  that  told  how  diligent 
he  could  be  when  he  had  the  proper  incentive.  Bruce,  who 
had  been  standing  near  by  to  watch  the  performance,  burst 
into  a  loud  laugh  when  somebody  behind  him  said : 

"  You  seem  to  be  enjoying  it  immensely,  Mr.  McAl 
lister." 

Wondering  where  he  had  heard  before  that  softly  modu 
lated  voice  with  the  one  hard  note  in  it,  like  a  fine  instrument 

45 


THE   RADICAL 

the  least  perceptible  bit  out  of  tune,  he  turned  and  faced 
Inez. 

She  was  dressed  in  a  light  pink  gown  that  clung  loosely 
to  her  bare,  superb  shoulders,  chastely  white  as  ivory.  A 
pearl  necklace  wound  around  her  neck  and  a  pendant  hung 
lovingly  toward  her  full  bosom.  A  plain  gold  ornament 
held  in  check  her  thick  coils  of  chestnut  hair,  which  one 
half  expected  to  see  break  loose  from  the  light  restraint  and 
fall  in  a  luxurious  shower  to  her  knees. 

"  It's  not  a  bad  bit  of  vaudeville,"  he  answered,  surveying 
her  smiling  face  and  comparing  her  in  her  beauty  to  Thor- 
waldsen's  Greek  girl  that  faced  them  both,  molded  on  ample 
lines  of  frame  and  limb,  clean  cut,  firm  and  enduring  as  the 
marble  out  of  which  the  cunning  chisel  had  fashioned  it. 

"  I'd  Leave  my  Happy  Home  for  You,"  whistled  the 
King  of  Bums,  strolling  past  Inez,  his  hands  thrust  deep 
down  in  his  pockets,  peering  at  her  critically,  his  greasy  head 
cocked  to  one  side  There  was  something  irresistibly  funny  ra 
ther  than  wantonly  insulting  in  his  attitude  and  Inez  burst 
out  laughing  and  Bruce  with  her.  Addison,  not  so  delighted 
by  the  deference  paid  his  sister  by  a  king,  flew  into  a  pet  and 
was  for  having  him  ejected  from  the  premises,  politics  or  no 
politics,  when  the  suave  courtier  Buck  O'Brien  intervened 
and  saved  the  king  once  more.  His  majesty  retreated  to  a 
cabinet  of  antiques  and  held  a  monologue,  a  crowd  of  his 
henchmen  around  him,  on  the  advisability  of  the  hostess  dis 
tributing  the  contents  for  souvenirs. 

"  Addison,"  smiled  Inez,  "  ought  to  expect  that  sort  of 
thing  if  he  goes  into  politics." 

"  Certainly,"  returned  Bruce  "  they  can  all  vote — some  of 
them,  if  they're  not  caught,  many  times." 

"  Boys,"  called  Addison,  "  there's  a  stand-up  lunch  wait 
ing  for  you  in  the  dining-room ;  "  and  immediately  after  this 


THE   TATTOOED  MAN 

announcement  he  rushed  up  to  Bruce  with,  "  I  say,  Bruce, 
1  guess  you  won't  care  much  about  eating  with  this  crew — 
you're  welcome  to  my  place.  It's  the  last  time  any  of  'cm  get 
in  here  unless  it  is  through  a  window.  You  might  prefer 
to  stay  here  and  talk  with  Inez.  I  won't  be  gone  long. 
The  King  of  Bums  ought  to  be  buried  in  the  ground  instead 
of  being  allowed  to  move  in  front  of  a  table." 

"  We  might  go  into  the  picture  gallery,"  suggested 
Inez,  and  she  led  the  way  across  the  hardwood  floors  and 
rugs  into  the  conservatory.  Bruce  followed. 

The  crowd  pushed  hurriedly  toward  the  dining  room, 
Buck  at  the  head,  King  Jeremiah  taking  an  unwilling  second 
place.  His  highness  sulked  again,  turning  up  his  nose  at 
what  he  called  the  cheap  grub;  and  when  he  learned  that 
beer  instead  of  champagne  was  to  be  served  his  disgust  knew 
no  bounds.  He  went  from  one  of  his  subjects  to  the  other, 
exhibiting  in  his  hand  one  of  the  waferlike  sandwiches 
and  muttering:  "Look  at  this  so  you'll  know  it  next  time 
when  you  see  it!  They  call  this  a  sandwich!  Yes,  a  sand 
wich!  So  help  me  Gawd,  I'm  going  to  have  its  picture  took 
to  hand  around  the  next  time  this  young  cabbage  head  runs 
fer  office!" 

Terence  Sullivan,  oil  inspector,  delivered  his  famous 
toast  "  The  Ladies,"  which,  beginning  with  Eve,  for  this  oc 
casion  was  brought  down  to  Mrs.  Hammersmith,  comparable 
to  the  best  of  them  according  to  Terence,  whose  knowledge 
of  the  fair  sex  was  encyclopaedic.  The  speech  was  greeted 
with  marked  favor  by  all  except  the  king  who  kept  mutter 
ing:  "What  to  hell!  What  to  hell!  She  ain't  so  much! 
Look  at  the  grub  she  sets  up!  They  show  me  first  next 
time!" 

Meanwhile,  the  swarthy  Bruce  and  the  fair  Inez  were 
passing  through  the  long,  brilliantly  lit  picture  gallery,  its 

47 


THE  RADICAL 

walls  covered  with  fairly  representative  works  of  the  older 
schools  and  many  best  examples  of  the  more  modern.  He 
felt  himself  responding  to  her  beauty  too  quickly,  and,  cog 
nizant  of  his  limitations,  he  recognized  the  futility  of  it  and 
checked  the  process  by  his  power  of  will.  Life  had  taught 
him  the  folly  of  wasting  effort  in  the  attempt  to  put  a  claim 
ing  finger  on  the  moon. 

Inez,  on  the  other  hand,  recognizing  the  intellectual 
strength  of  the  man  was  tempted  to  try  the  power  of  her 
beauty  over  it.  She  was  not  at  all  conscious  that  this  was 
her  purpose.  She  told  herself  merely  that  he  interested  her 
for  the  moment.  His  character  was  complex;  to  unravel 
it  challenged  her  ingenuity.  Inez,  taking  her  beauty  for 
granted,  flattered  herself  only  on  her  intellect  and  she  was 
amenable  to  flattery  only  along  that  line. 

He  had  piqued  her  curiosity  on  the  evening  of  his  address, 
and  even  more  than  that,  he  had  stimulated  her  thought,  and 
more  still,  he  had  ruffled  her  emotions,  which,  seated  far 
below  the  surface,  were  hard,  although  far  from  impossible, 
to  reach.  She  was  not  so  cold  as  she  seemed!  Of  course 
a  word,  a  detached  sentence  or  two,  still  remained  with  her, 
echoing  in  her  mind  now  and  then  when  occasion  awoke  their 
memory,  but  even  these  grew  fainter  and  fainter  as  the  days 
sped  on.  Is  it  not  the  author  of  our  greatest  psychology  who 
holds  up  to  us  as  a  terrible  example  the  Russian  lady  who 
wept  copious  tears  over  the  fate  of  the  heroine  inside  the 
theater  while  her  coachman  sat  freezing  on  the  box  of  her 
carriage  without?  Doubtlessly  when  the  play  was  over  my 
lady  had  done  with  her  weeping,  and  the  fate  of  the 
heroine  either  perished  from  her  memory,  or  sunk,  more 
dead  than  alive,  into  the  dim  region  of  her  subconsciousness. 

Had  it  been  otherwise  with  Inez  it  would  have  ap 
proached  the  border  line  of  miracle.  Environment,  social 


THE  TATTOOED  MAN 

interests,  temperament,  molded  the  grooves  down  which  her 
thoughts  ran,  and  their  direction  was  radically  opposite  to 
those  Bruce  had  lured  them  into  taking  for  a  minute  or  two. 
A  single  emotion  no  more  makes  a  habit  of  mind  than  a 
single  puff  of  wind  determines  the  course  of  a  river.  What 
ever  her  faults,  and  Inez  had  her  full  share  of  them,  she  tried 
to  be  honest  with  herself  and  she  scorned  to  pretend  to  believe 
in  what  she  did  not  believe.  She  honestly  thought  his  no 
tions,  on  a  more  mature  consideration,  to  be  false  to  the  core 
and  prejudiced  at  the  very  base. 

Moreover,  his  vagarious  ideas  interfered  with  her  intel 
lectual  complacency  and  she  dismissed  them  in  obedience  to 
that  primal  law  which  makes  us  protect  our  happiness  as  our 
very  selves.  If  Truth  disturbs  our  conscience,  we  must  either 
submit  to  her  sway  or  else  prove  her  a  liar  and  oust  her! 
Inez  was  glad  that  honesty  did  not  ask  her  to  admit  beyond 
the  portals  the  distorted  thing  that  Bruce  McAllister  called 
truth.  It  was,  she  thought,  like  Bruce  himself,  ugly  to  look 
upon  and  not  attractive  to  her  highly  developed  esthetic  sense. 

Still,  which  was  quite  natural,  too,  now  that  Inez  saw 
Bruce  again,  her  interest  was  reawakened  and  she  meant  to 
know  him  better,  to  test  his  mettle  and  incidentally  her  own. 
He  was  different  than  the  men  with  whom  she  came  in  con 
tact,  who  trod  the  commonplace  orbit  that  led  between  their 
desks  and  their  homes,  whose  thoughts  were  as  precisely 
mapped  out  as  their  paths — both  in  many  cases  having  been 
planned  by  a  father.  Young,  vital,  eager,  in  love  with  exist 
ence,  with  every  breath  she  drew,  she  was  athirst  and  aflame 
for  the  knowledge  of  life  and  of  people.  Her  spirit  in  this 
respect  was  quite  the  same  as  that  of  an  ardent  geologist  who 
wishes  to  know  all  about  rocks,  not  because  he  indulges  an 
idea  so  insane  as  to  think  his  knowledge  will  be  of  any  benefit 
to  the  rocks,  but  simply  because  he  has  the  curiosity  and 

49 


THE  RADICAL 

rocks  happen  to  pique  it.  Life  had  drawn  a  circle  around 
her  and  forced  her  to  move  within  its  circumference.  Bruce 
McAllister  had  given  her  one  of  her  first  glimpses  beyond. 

"  Do  you  like  pictures?  "  she  asked  suddenly.  It  was  to 
break  the  ice  into  which  he  was  to  fall,  while  she,  at  it  were, 
was  to  stand  on  the  shore  and  watch  how  he  disported  him 
self  in  the  uncomfortable  situation. 

"  I  don't  understand  them,"  he  answered ;  "  that  is,  they 
don't  make  any  appeal  to  me.  Neither  does  music.  An 
artistic  sense,  so  my  sister  says,  is  entirely  lacking  in  me.  I'm 
sorry,  but  so  be  it." 

"  Oh,  you  have  a  sister?  "  mentally  Inez  pictured  the  sis 
ter,  wondering  if  she  could  be  as  ugly  as  Bruce. 

"  Yes,  I  have.  She  doesn't  look  like  me.  The  picture 
you  have  formed  of  her  doesn't  do  her  justice."  Inez  started 
as  one  taken  unawares.  Bruce  continued :  "  They  say  she 
has  a  big  talent.  She's  doing  some  clever  work  in  plaster 
modeling.  All  the  McAllisters  are  smart,"  he  added  with 
a  childlike  naivete. 

Inez  laughed  again,  showing  pearly  teeth;  her  brown 
eyes  changed  color  like  the  waters  of  the  sea,  moving  ever, 
the  same  and  yet  not  the  same.  Bruce  looked  down  on  her 
from  his  superior  height  of  four  inches.  "  A  skeleton  in 
clothes,"  flashed  through  her  mind.  The  magnetism  of  her 
mere  personal  beauty  went  through  him  like  an  electric  cur 
rent,  disturbing  his  self-mastery,  scattering  his  thoughts  to 
the  four  corners  of  the  picture  gallery.  Then  he  regained 
his  control,  angry  at  himself  for  having  lost  it. 

"  We  might  sit  down,"  and  she  suited  the  action  to  the 
word,  dropping  gracefully  into  a  small  couch  that  was  cov 
ered  with  embroidery  of  the  time  when  Louis  XIV  was  king. 

"  Well,"  said  Bruce,  studying  the  design,  "  it  hardly 
seems  right  to  sit  on  the  face  of  that  elegant  gentleman  in  the 

50 


THE  TATTOOED  MAN 

short  trousers  and  ribbons,  who  is  bowing  to  me.  Why  is 
it  that  the  amount  of  commerce  seems  to  have  increased 
with  the  length  of  men's  trousers?  " 

"  As  men  grew  more  businesslike,"  she  answered,  "  their 
dress  was  fated  to  become  more  practical." 

"  Sounds  natural."  Bruce  swung  out  his  long  arm  and 
looked  with  a  ludicrous  countenance  at  his  long  legs.  "  I'm 
glad  they  didn't  drop  me  down  with  those  knickerbockered, 
beribboned  fellows — it  would  have  been  too  hard  on  the 
tailors." 

She  thought  he  lacked  in  sensitiveness,  not  seeing  how  the 
attacking  of  one's  own  weakest  point  is  much  like  building 
a  defense  around  it,  how  very  like  it  is  to  taking  the  enemy's 
strongest  weapon  out  of  his  hands  and  astonishing  him  into 
admitting  its  weakness. 

"  I'm  far  more  interested  in  politics  than  in  clothes,"  she 
said  to  him. 

"  Well,  politics  is  clothes  and  bread  and  butter,  besides, 
to  most  of  us." 

"  I  did  not  think  you  went  into  politics  with  that  aim," 
she  said. 

"  Why  should  you?  "  asked  Bruce,  swinging  a  long  arm 
at  the  surrounding  elegance  and  luxury.  He  never  would 
permit  himself  to  talk  to  anybody  but  Bruce  McAllister  on 
lofty  aims  and  ideals  in  politics,  and  even  then  he  caught  the 
humorous  Bruce  chuckling  in  his  sleeve  at  the  serious  one. 

"  Why  shouldn't  I  ?  "  asked  Inez,  seeking  the  exit  from 
her  own  trap. 

"  Well,"  he  volunteered,  "  politics  is  the  way  hundreds 
of  us  have  of  making  our  living.  We  go  into  it  as  your  fa 
ther,  for  instance,  has  gone  into  business.  You  may  answer 
me  that  we  promise  and  that  we  are  expected  to  serve  the 
ends  of  the  public,  therefore  our  aim  should  be  higher.  But 

51 


THE   RADICAL 

my  answer  is  that  politics  is  nothing  but  a  machine  run  to 
aid  the  transaction  of  business.  We  are  expected  to  serve 
business;  it's  a  farce  to  pretend  otherwise.  How  then  can 
our  aims  be  higher  than  the  ends  we  are  forced  to  serve? 
Anyway,  it  is  expecting  a  good  deal  of  high  ideals  to  ask  them 
to  stand  up  against  the  material  forces  of  hunger  and  want. 
Have  you  ever  gone  hungry  ?  "  he  asked  abruptly. 

"  Spiritually  hungry?  " 

"  Spiritual  hunger  is  nothing,"  returned  Bruce,  who  had 
felt  the  pangs  of  it,  "  that  is  a  kind  of  longing  that  comes 
after  a  hearty  dinner ;  it's  the  coffee  with  which  we  top  off." 
His  features  dropped  into  a  dull  repose;  then  a  melancholy, 
absent  look  stole  over  them.  Inez  noticed  it. 

"Have  you  ever  gone  hungry?"  she  asked,  somewhat 
more  sympathetically. 

"  A  growing  boy  goes  hungry  all  the  time,"  he  answered 
guardedly.  He  paused  a  second  and  then  said,  as  if  tak 
ing  her  question  more  seriously:  "  Yes,  I  went  hungry  very 
often.  My  father  died  when  I  was  a  mere  lad  and  I  was  left 
practically  to  support  a  family."  He  stopped  short  again. 
His  pride  in  obstacles  overcome  was  just,  his  reserve  concern 
ing  the  nature  of  them  natural. 

Her  eyes,  lustrously  brown,  fastened  on  him  intently. 
"  Go  on,"  they  said,  appealingly.  Her  hands  clasped  her 
knees ;  her  lips  rounded  expectantly.  Hers  was  the  listening 
attitude.  Inez's  idea  of  poverty  had  been  gleaned  from  such 
polite  books  as  "  The  Princess  Casamassima,"  which  is  like 
learning  what  the  pains  of  rheumatism  are  from  the  third 
cousin  of  the  man  who  had  it.  The  poor  had  her  intellectual 
pity,  but  she  had  been  reared  to  believe  that  their  poverty  was 
their  own  fault.  Had  not  her  mother  had  a  seamstress  who 
returned  generosity  with  impudence,  a  coachman  who  drank 
too  much,  a  chef  who  proved  dishonest?  She  was  eager  to 

52 


THE  TATTOOED  MAN 

learn  from  him  who  knew  and  whose  knowledge  came  from 
a  first-hand  experience.  Her  mute  appeal  lifted  the  finger 
of  reserve  from  his  lips. 

"  I  was  only  thirteen  when  my  father  died,  and  I  quit 
school  at  once  and  went  to  the  alderman  of  our  ward,  a  man 
by  the  name  of  McQuirk  for  whom  my  father  had  done  some 
political  favors,  and  I  insisted  that  he  find  me  work.  I  was 
a  tall  boy  for  my  age,  and  he  put  me  to  driving  a  wagon  for 
a  butcher  by  the  name  of  Collberger.  I  had  the  habit  of 
sitting  up  until  all  hours  of  the  night  reading  and  studying 
and  taking  cat  naps  on  the  wagon  seat  during  the  day.  One 
cold  winter  night  I  had  a  delivery  to  make  out  in  the  country 
and  I  dozed  off.  When  they  found  me  on  the  roadside  I  was 
half  frozen  and  the  horse  and  wagon  were  nowhere  in  sight. 
They  took  me  to  the  hospital,  and  the  doctor  talked  about 
snipping  off  my  leg,  but  I  wouldn't  stand  for  it,  and  the 
result  is  I  can  still  stand  on  my  own  legs.  When  I  got  well  I 
applied  at  Collberger's  for  my  old  job,  but  he  wouldn't  give 
it  to  me.  He  insisted  that  my  carelessness  had  nearly  lost  a 
horse  and  wagon  for  him,  which  was  right  in  a  way,  although 
I  thought  he  ought  to  have  considered  that  it  nearly  cost  me 
a  leg.  Then  I  wandered  around  the  streets  in  search  for 
something  to  do;  the  times  were  hard  and  I  couldn't  get  it. 
We  lived  on  bread  and  water  in  those  days — I  don't  exagge 
rate — and  I  can  tell  you  there  wasn't  any  too  much  of  it." 
His  eyes  wavered,  the  gray  in  them  dying  away  and  leaving 
them  a  dreamy  blue. 

"  Go  on,  won't  you,"  she  appealed  softly. 

Ours  is  no  age  of  romance,  knight  errantry  and  battle, 
but  one  of  prosaic  commerce,  and  our  modern  Othellos  woo 
and  win  our  modern  Desdemonas  not  by  accounts  of  moving 
accidents  and  hair-breadth  escapes  in  the  imminent,  deadly 
breach,  but  by  the  gentler  tale  of  service  done  our  great  god 

53 


THE  RADICAL 

Success  in  fields  commercial.  The  witchcraft  used  in  either 
case  is  quite  the  same — power. 

"  Finally  I  lined  up  enough  voters  in  the  ward  to  influ 
ence  McQuirk  to  influence  Collberger,  and  he  took  me  back 
against  his  will.  It  was  practically  my  first  insight  into  the 
power  of  influence,  of  pull  and  of  politics.  I  made  it  a  point 
to  do  my  sleeping  in  bed  this  time  and  I  got  along  better. 
After  a  while  Collberger  advanced  me  to  a  clerkship.  His 
store  was  quite  a  haunt  for  politicians,  for  he  had  the  county 
meat  contract  and  had  his  finger  in  other  fires  as  well.  I 
kept  my  eyes  and  ears  open  and  I  picked  up  a  few  tricks  of 
the  trade.  In  fact,  I  learned  so  many  tricks  that  Collberger 
was  really  afraid  to  let  me  go  and  he  raised  my  salary  at  con 
venient  intervals.  I  was  paid  for  what  I  wasn't  supposed  to 
know.  Meanwhile,  I  kept  on  with  my  books  at  night  in  the 
way  the  Lincoln  birthday  orator  has  made  fashionable  for 
poor  young  men.  My  brother  Peter,  who  is  a  few  years 
younger  than  I,  yet  more  of  a  scholar,  helped  me  along. 

"  One  campaign  when  McQuirk  was  counting  votes  the 
way  a  miser  counts  dollars,  I  came  to  his  rescue  and  he,  with 
Collberger  backing  my  petition — he  was  anxious  to  rid  him 
of  bad  rubbish — found  me  a  job  in  the  city  hall.  I  man 
euvered  until  I  placed  my  brother  Peter,  who  has  a  scientific 
turn  of  mind,  in  the  bacteriological  department  of  the  same 
employer,  and  I  kept  my  place  until  I  was  admitted  to  the 
bar.  I  used  a  good  deal  of  the  city's  time  to  good  advantage 
studying  law.  There  you  have  me;  it's  all  my  history,"  he 
ended. 

"  Except  the  parts  you  have  chosen  not  to  tell,"  she  com 
mented,  her  desire  more  aroused  than  satisfied. 

He  looked  in  his  absent  way  through  the  glass  door  of  the 
conservatory  and  caught  sight  of  the  hungry  members  of  the 
club  gormandising.  The  cut  glass,  the  silver  and  gold, 

54 


THE  TATTOOED  MAN 

the  Florentine  sideboard,  the  tapestries  and  the  soft  tints  of 
the  painted  panels — all  this  magnificence  thrown  into  strange 
contrast  with  the  gluttonous  hoi  polloi,  dawned  as  suddenly 
on  Bruce's  consciousness  as  if  the  view  had  not  been  before 
him  all  evening. 

"  Perhaps  you  would  rather  be  in  there  than  talking  with 
me,"  said  Inez,  noticing  the  direction  in  which  his  eyes  were 
turned.  Was  she  in  the  least  piqued  because -his  attention 
wandered  from  her? 

"No,"  said  Bruce  decidedly;  and  then,  absently,  "You 
interest  me." 

Astonishment,  perceptible  as  a  shadow,  wavered  over  her 
countenance.  In  a  way  the  tables  had  been  turned  on  her  by 
this  odd,  decidedly  homely,  and  positively  awkward  man. 
Had  those  piercing  gray  eyes  of  his  divined  her  motives? 
His  cleverness,  seemingly,  was  not  confined  to  oratory.  It 
reminded  her  of  the  time  when  she  had  hired  a  French  maid 
for  the  purpose  of  better  acquiring  her  idiom ;  but  the  astute 
maid  had  merely  improved  the  opportunity  to  perfect  her 
English. 

"  I'm  really  glad  you  are  interested  in  me,"  she  laughed 
good-naturedly,  in  full  appreciation  of  the  situation. 

Bruce  shook  a  nervous  foot,  mistaking  appreciation  for 
sarcasm.  "  Well,"  he  brought  out  after  a  second's  pause, 
"  there's  nothing  I  like  to  do  better  than  to  pull  down  walls." 

"  Addison's  friends,"  she  said  regretfully,  "  are  taking 
their  departure,  and  I  am  afraid  we  shall  have  to  go.  Per 
haps  you  will  come  to  see  me  again?  It  seems  to  me  as  if 
we  had  removed  no  more  than  the  first  stone  from  the  divid 
ing  wall."  She  rose  with  a  courtesy. 

"  Just  one  second,"  said  Bruce,  rising  with  her ;  "  I  want 
to  tell  you  a  little  story.  When  I  was  a  boy  I  went  to  the 
circus  and  the  thing  that  attracted  me  most  was  the  tattooed 

55 


THE  RADICAL 

man.  I  was  a  skeptical  youngster  and  I  wouldn't  believe 
that  he  was  genuine.  I  had  the  notion  that  he  was  merely 
dressed  in  a  thin,  decorated  velvet  suit.  So  do  you  know 
what  I  did  ?  I  stuck  pins  into  him.  The  first  time  the  least 
bit,  and  he  didn't  feel  it.  The  second  time  I  jabbed  him 
and  he  yelled  and  cursed ;  then  I  stole  away  satisfied." 

Her  fine  brows  knit.  She  deduced  the  moral  of  the  story, 
only  after  the  author  of  it  had  disappeared,  arm  in  arm  with 
the  Honorable  Buck  O'Brien. 


BOOK   TWO 


CHAPTER    I 

THE   MAGIC   CARPET 

WHO'S  running  this  country,  anyway,  this  man  Mc 
Allister  or  I  ?  "  asked  Anthony  Wyckoff,  father 
of  The  Trust  of  Trusts,  of  Sydney  P.  Shaw,  the 
most  powerful  man  on  the  floor  of  the  House  of  Representa 
tives — at  least  when  Bruce  McAllister  and  several  others 
were  off  it. 

"  I  can't  see  that  McAllister  has  much  to  do  with  it," 
said  Shaw  in  his  most  cajoling  tones. 

"  Shut  him  up  then,"  ordered  Anthony  in  his  rich  bass 
voice,  his  cross  eyes  twinkling,  his  cheeks  puffing. 

Anthony  Wyckoff,  dubbed  "  Sir  Anthony  "  by  those  who 
felt  the  pressure  of  his  thumb,  was  the  very  general  over  all 
the  captains  of  industry.  He  was  the  founder  of  the  Cos 
mopolitan  Oil  Company ;  he  was  considered  the  richest  man 
in  the  world  and  he  was  a  dreadful  sufferer  from  the  gout. 
He  was  a  figure  so  important  that  he  impressed  himself  on 
the  English  language  and  wrought  a  change  in  it:  since  his 
advent  the  phrase  "  as  rich  as  a  Jew  "  was  obsolescent. 

How  many  ambitious  lads  have  not  read  his  short  auto 
biographical  articles  in  the  Encouraged  He  tells  there  of 
his  struggles  against  inconceivable  hardships  and  he  attributes 
his  degree  of  modest  success  to  perseverance,  hard  work,  un 
compromising  honesty,  and  a  rigid  adherence  to  the  doctrines 
of  Christianity  as  practiced  by  the  Master  Himself.  He  felt 

59 


THE  RADICAL 

the  Lord  was  on  his  side,  which  is  good  for  business ;  he  sin 
cerely  believed  the  Lord  had  given,  and  stood  in  terrible 
dread  lest  the  Lord  take  away.  When  a  twinge  of  the  gout 
warned  him  of  the  transitoriness  of  all  things  human,  he 
hastened  to  found  a  university  or  hospital,  and  so  he  secured 
a  new  lease  on  life  and  a  new  peace  of  mind.  Presidents  of 
universities  and  managing  boards  of  hospitals  watched  the 
newspapers  carefully  to  learn  the  state  of  Sir  Anthony's 
health.  The  great  toe  of  no  man  on  earth,  save  the  Pope's, 
has  been  accorded  such  reverence. 

Any  number  of  biographies,  other  than  Anthony's,  will 
tell  you  by  what  methods  he  gained  control  over  the  oil 
that  lights  the  world;  here  we  may  content  ourselves  with 
pointing  out  that  Anthony  merely  did  on  a  colossal  scale  what 
hundreds  and  hundreds  were  doing  on  a  scale  too  petty  for 
his  masterful  consideration,  and  what  thousands  of  others 
would  have  been  happy  to  do  if  they  had  but  had  the  brains 
to  let  them  do  it.  He  permitted  himself  but  one  economic 
theory — whatever  is  worth  owning  at  all  is  worth  owning 
all  alone.  No  one  could  go  into  the  oil  business  without  his 
permission  and  he  extended  the  privilege  to  himself  only. 

"  This  man  McAllister's  talk,"  continued  Sir  Anthony — 
we  interrupt  his  biography  to  continue  his  conversation  with 
Shaw — "  is  stirring  up  in  this  country  a  foolish  and  wicked 
sentiment  that  I  don't  like.  I  can't  do  what  I  want  if  such 
demagogues  keep  on  lying  to  an  impressionable  public  and 
make  it  believe  that  I  am  trespassing  on  its  liberties!  It's 
absurd  and  it's  contemptible !  "  Anthony's  compact  form 
bobbed  up  from  the  red  plush  chair  and  appeared  at  the 
hotel  window.  The  rectangular  vistas  of  Washington, 
sparkling  in  the  wintry  sunshine,  met  his  gaze.  The  snow 
was  falling  with  a  soothing  touch  on  the  city  that  lay  below 
him.  He  saw  the  Capitol  as  in  miniature.  It  might  have 

60 


THE  MAGIC  CARPET 

reminded  an  intelligence  more  awake  to  comparisons  of  one 
of  those  toy  scenes  wedged  in  the  bottom  of  a  crystalline  ball, 
over  which  the  snow  is  set  to  flying  by  a  dexterous  twist  of 
the  hand.  The  White  House,  robed  in  ermine  like  a  simple 
monk  suddenly  exalted,  the  rare  trees  and  shrubbery  of  La 
fayette  Square  in  new  and  coquettish  attire,  appealed  to  him 
in  vain ;  his  mind  was  elsewhere. 

"Come,"  put  in  Sydney  P.  Shaw  suddenly;  "  to  what, 
after  all,  amounts  the  little  legislation  that  McAllister  is 
getting?" 

"  I  don't  care  about  that,  Shaw — I  suppose  we  have  to 
fling  the  mob  a  sop  once  in  so  often — but  it's  the  principle 
of  the  thing.  If  that  revolutionary  spirit  is  set  afoot,  who 
knows  when  it's  going  to  stop?  I  tell  you,  the  people  of 
this  great  country  are  a  good  deal  better  off  if  they  know 
nothing  about  the  nonsense  McAllister  is  trying  to  stuff  into 
their  heads.  I  pay  good  wages,  I  have  no  intention,  upon  my 
word  and  honor,  of  grinding  them  down,  and  they'll  starve 
to  death  when  these  demagogues  rule." 

Sir  Anthony  shifted  windows  as  he  shifted  sentences. 
His  eyes  traveled  down  the  huge  stairs  made  by  the  jagged 
roof-tops  and  swept  along  Pennsylvania  Avenue,  which  be 
gins  so  well  with  the  democratic  White  House  and  the 
classic  Treasury  and  goes  to  pieces  long  before  it  reaches  the 
middle  with  the  horrible  Post  Office,  which  atones  for  its 
fault  by  ending  with  the  Capitol  and  its  grounds.  Pennsyl 
vania  Avenue  was  far  more  of  a  jumble  than  Sir  Anthony's 
mind;  one  might  have  wondered,  had  not  the  sheet  of 
white  covered  its  multitude  of  sins,  what  mad  giant's  hand 
had  tossed  together  helter-skelter  that  fantastic  array  of  lodg 
ing  houses,  pretentious  hotels,  saloons,  pawnshops,  Chinese 
restaurants  and  laundries.  The  aspect  of  the  avenue,  again 
unlike  Anthony  WyckofFs  mind,  was  southern  in  its  care- 

61 


THE   RADICAL 

lessness;  the  old-fashioned  fronts  of  its  decayed  houses,  now 
degenerated  into  petty  shops,  reminded  one  of  an  ante-bellum 
southern  town  that  merely  existed  in  the  present  to  boast 
sadly  of  the  grandeur  of  its  past. 

"  Shut  him  up !  "  said  Anthony,  turning  his  back  on  the 
window.  "  If  you  can't  shut  McAllister  up  one  way,  try 
another." 

Sydney  P.  Shaw  shook  his  fine  head  and  stroked  his  blond 
beard  with  his  white  hand.  "  We've  tried  several  ways. 
We've  offered  him  the  law  work  for  your  western  railways 
and  he  laughed." 

"  Laughed,"  repeated  Anthony  as  if  shocked,  his  voice 
sinking  deeper.  "What  does  the  fellow  want? — to  make  a 
colossal  fortune  by  overthrowing  me!  That's  a  game  sev 
eral  of  them  are  trying." 

"  It's  hard  work  to  get  at  the  motives  of  men ;  but  he 
seems  in  earnest.  The  Speaker  could  shut  him  up  in  five 
minutes  if  he  wanted  to — he's  more  or  less  to  blame  for  all 
•of  it  at  bottom." 

"  I  was  always  afraid  that  Fiske  might  prove  unsafe," 
said  Anthony.  "  It  was  against  my  better  judgment  to  let 
him  go  where  he  is.  But  that's  done  now.  Besides,  you  can 
never  quite  tell  about  men  until  they're  tried.  Suppose 
we  sound  McAllister  more  subtly.  There's  the  Trans 
oceanic." 

Shaw  nodded  knowingly. 

It  will  be  seen  from  this  straight-to-the-point  conversation 
that  Bruce  McAllister  had  stepped  on  the  magic  carpet  and 
been  whirled  away  on  it  from  Chicago  to  Washington. 
Politics  made  the  warp  and  woof  of  the  carpet  that  carried 
him  along  at  a  terrific  speed  from  the  legislature  of  Illinois, 
where  he  made  a  name  for  himself  in  the  case  of  People  vs. 
Corruption  to  the  state's  attorneyship,  where  he  made  a  still 

62 


THE  MAGIC  CARPET 

greater  name  for  himself,  and  thence  to  the  national  hall  of 
legislation  at  Washington. 

It  was  while  Bruce  was  state's  attorney  that  he  came  in 
contact  and  conflict  with  Franklin  De  Wolfe  Fiske,  who 
after  serving  his  country  with  honor  in  and  out  of  Congress, 
refused  the  Cabinet  portfolio  that  had  been  offered  him. 
Fiske's  services  had  been  called  into  requisition  by  several 
kings  of  commerce — at  a  price  big  enough  to  bankrupt  their 
combined  treasury — whom  our  hero  was  prosecuting  for  their 
successful  attempts  to  restrain  trade. 

Fiske  began  by  belaboring  and  ridiculing  Bruce  in  his 
usual  ironical  fashion;  he  ended  by  expressing  unstinted  ad 
miration  for  him.  When  he  left  Chicago  he  remarked  that 
the  three  things  that  impressed  him  most  were  Lake  Michi 
gan,  Bruce  McAllister,  and  the  Stock  Yards,  and  of  these 
three,  McAllister  alone  was  worth  the  price  of  the  trip.  It 
was  high  praise  coming  from  a  man  whose  favorite  method 
of  expression  was  irony  and  who  rarely  mentioned  anybody 
without  attaching  to  his  name  an  epithet  that  made  the 
owner  thereof  wish  he  might  change  it. 

Bruce  himself  laid  little  stress  on  Fiske's  praise  or  blame, 
for  the  truth  is,  that  he  took  neither  his  legal  victories  nor 
defeats  to  heart,  and  he  was  beginning  to  take  the  law  less 
and  less  seriously.  It  was  characteristic  of  him  to  challenge 
the  profession  that  was  filling  his  pockets  with  gold,  and  to 
ask  of  it,  "  What  means  the  law  to  my  people,  the  prop- 
ertyless  ?  Is  it  not  an  entirely  negative  institution  for  them  ? 
Is  it  not " — but  enough  of  this,  since  it  suffices  to  say  that 
either  his  impatience  with  a  profession  in  which  he  no  longer 
believed,  or  else  his  ambition  or  his  fate,  led  him  to  resign 
and  to  run  for  Congress.  But  again,  if  his  purpose  was  not 
unselfish,  how  explain  the  sacrifices  he  made?  For  the  de 
tails  of  the  election  we  refer  the  curious  as  well  as  the  lover 

63 


THE  RADICAL 

of  the  technicalities  of  politics  to  any  one  of  the  half  dozen 
biographies  of  Bruce  McAllister  that  have  appeared  since. 

At  the  time  when  Bruce  entered  the  Republican  House, 
Franklin  De  Wolfe  Fiske  was  the  Speaker  of  it,  and  he 
gave  Bruce  what  has  been  given  by  one  man  to  another  so 
seldom  in  Washington,  as  to  make  the  gift  noteworthy — • 
namely,  a  "  glad  hand  "  backed  by  a  sincere  heart.  He  told 
Bruce  behind  the  closed  doors  of  the  Speaker's  room,  where 
they  had  many  a  long  conversation,  he  would  do  for  him  any 
reasonable  favor  that  lay  in  his  power. 

Circumstances,  like  Fiske  himself,  arranged  themselves 
on  the  side  of  Bruce.  The  epoch  was  propitious  for  one  of 
his  kidney;  radicalism  had  a  pedestal  in  waiting  for  the  man 
of  the  hour  to  mount.  Labor  was  restless,  capital  unyielding, 
and  the  one  opened  an  itching  palm  to  close  tightly  around 
the  throat  of  the  other.  Peacemakers  proposed  remedies 
for  the  evil;  Bruce  humorously  proved  the  remedies  worse 
than  the  disease.  Humor  needs  little  blazoning  of  trumpets 
to  assemble  an  audience.  Bruce  was  quoted  far  and  wide. 
The  press  commended  his  ability  while  deprecating  his  atti 
tude.  His  radicalism  would  lag  steadily  behind  his  acquired 
wisdom,  it  predicted,  and  gradually  be  lost  from  sight.  Con 
servatism,  ripening  gradually,  would  hail  him  a  coming  man. 
Before  long,  when  it  was  known  that  McAllister  "  was  up," 
each  seat  had  a  listene--,  Those  who  were  diverted  realized 
afterwards  with  a  start  that  they  had  been  instructed. 

Moreover,  the  Democrats,  who,  to  quote  Fiske,  "  were 
not  by  far  so  weak  numerically  as  intellectually,"  were  impos 
ing  stumbling-blocks  in  the  way  of  legislation.  In  their  ranks 
were  a  number  of  young  men  whom  neither  the  interests  of 
a  class,  nor  bribery,  nor  corruption,  nor  the  party  whip  could 
force  into  line.  These  had  Bruce's  ideas  more  or  less  vaguely, 
but  his  conscious  ideals  were  lacking  in  their  equipment.  He 


THE  MAGIC   CARPET 

directed  them  toward  a  common  aim ;  he  throttled  vagueness. 
They  gathered  around  the  flag  he  hoisted  and  they  presented 
a  solid  front,  as  conscious  of  purpose  as  was  the  enemy  whom 
they  assaulted. 

He  was  toiling  day  and  night  now  on  a  bill  directed 
against  the  employment  of  child  labor  on  products  that 
crossed  state  lines.  He  was  a  willing  slave  to  the  bill;  it 
claimed  him  heart  and  mind  like  a  mistress.  Anthony 
dreaded  lest  it  slip  through  a  chink  in  the  Interstate  Com 
merce  Committee  room,  mouselike,  evade  all  the  traps  that 
the  watchful  Shaw,  who  was  chairman  of  the  committee,  had 
set  for  it,  and  scamper  along  on  the  floor  of  the  House. 

Anthony  objected  to  the  bill,  not  that  he  loved  children 
less,  but  that  he  loved  profits  more,  and  besides  it  stood  in 
the  way  of  the  consummation  of  his  schemes  with  a  so-to-say 
juvenile  indiscretion.  The  work  of  the  world  must  be  done, 
the  big  deals  brought  to  fruition,  and  what  matters  it,  after 
a  multitude  of  suns  have  set  and  risen,  if  a  generation  or  two 
of  children  be  crushed  out  in  the  process?  Others  will  take 
their  place  in  the  scheme  of  things  and  a  hurrying  world  will 
mark  no  difference,  but  a  great  scheme  gone  astray  may  tear 
out  a  joint  from  the  rails  of  civilization  and  wreck  the  engine 
of  progress. 


CHAPTER    II 

AN    ENEMY   TO    BRUCE 

IT  was  ten  o'clock  when  Sydney  P.  Shaw,  quitting  Anthony 
Wyckoff,  left  the  hotel  and  sauntered  leisurely  along 
F  Street  past  the  Doric-columned  portico,  Parthenon- 
like,  of  the  Department  of  the  Interior's  huge  buildings. 

"  This  affair  with  McAllister  will  straighten  itself  out 
all  right,"  he  said  to  himself,  stroking  his  blond  beard  with 
his  neatly  gloved  hand. 

Sydney  was  at  peace  with  himself  and  quite  satisfied  with 
the  world  as  it  wagged.  Anthony  had  given  him  his  word, 
for  one  thing,  that  he  was  to  have  his  indorsement  as  the  next 
presidential  candidate — Sydney  barely  had  escaped  the  nomi 
nation  twice — and  while  Shaw  believed  that  Anthony's  word 
was  as  good  as  his  bond,  and  we  have  just  learned  how  good 
that  was,  he  had  something  still  more  substantial  in  his  pocket, 
namely,  six  hundred  shares  in  the  Transoceanic  Transfer 
Company — one  of  the  many  schemes  that  kept  in  ferment 
the  fertile  imagination  of  our  king  of  commerce. 

In  brief,  this  little  scheme  was  one  whereby  the  govern 
ment  was  to  subsidize  its  international  mail  service  and  pay 
about  a  million  and  a  half  into  the  coffers  of  the  treasury 
of  the  Transoceanic  for  letter-carrying  alone.  On  the  face 
of  it  the  bonus  was  open  to  all  competing  lines,  but  the  bill 
was  so  skilfully  drawn — what  otherwise  was  the  use  of  hav 
ing  two  such  heads  as  Sydney's  and  Anthony's? — with  such 

66 


AN   ENEMY  TO   BRUCE 

limitations  as  to  size,  speed  and  ownership,  that  only  the 
vessels  of  the  Transoceanic  would  come  under  its  provisions. 

Thinking  of  these  things,  Sydney  P.  Shaw  moved  serenely 
along.  The  snow  still  fell,  though  more  gently,  gracing  all 
it  touched  from  the  freestone  granite  and  marble  of  the  great 
government  buildings  to  the  store  fronts  of  F  Street,  devoted 
to  shoppers.  Women  passed  him,  gayly  attired  in  light  gar 
ments,  relying  on  the  usual  mildness  of  Washington  win 
ters.  Several  acquaintances  of  the  sex  bowed  to  him;  but 
these  he  heeded  not,  so  lost  was  he  in  his  own  thoughts. 
Others  looked  at  him  with  a  quick,  shy  glance  of  admiration, 
for  Shaw's  appearance  did  no  dishonor  to  his  statesmanship. 
His  fine  figure,  erect  and  manly,  his  intellectual  forehead, 
his  attractive  face,  his  Hyperion  locks  and  whiskers  gave  him 
the  power  to  attract  always,  to  command  on  occasion.  It 
was  only  the  closest  of  observers  who  would  have  caught 
the  slight  suggestion  of  furtiveness  in  Shaw's  penetrating, 
oblong  eyes  that  drooped  toward  his  high  temples.  The  lids 
fell  over  them  curtainwise,  almost  like  superfluous  flesh. 
His  eyelids  concealed  from  the  curious  any  change  of  ex 
pression  in  the  eyes,  and  his  blue  eyes  seemed  formed  to  con 
ceal  the  perfect  stream  of  thoughts  that  poured  in  and  out 
of  the  deep  caverns  of  Shaw's  mind.  "  Yes,"  he  thought, 
again  stroking  his  beard,  "  we  can  roll  McAllister  to  one 
side  the  way  the  sun  rolls  the  fog." 

He  moved  on  through  Judiciary  Square,  its  bare  trees 
made  by  the  snow  to  resemble  the  columns  of  a  cathedral. 
The  bright  red  of  the  ugly  Pension  building  struck  a  false 
tone  in  the  color  scheme,  and  Sydney  felt,  without  knowing 
why,  that  something  was  amiss  when  his  eye  fell  on  the 
structure's  monotonous  march  of  infantry,  cavalry,  and  artil 
lery  along  the  commonplace  frieze.  The  snowfall  lessened 
suddenly  and  he  sat  him  down  on  one  of  the  benches  and 


THE   RADICAL 

looked  at  the  friendly,  odd,  little  buildings  of  the  city  hall 
and  courthouse.  The  air  was  mild,  springlike,  carrying 
with  it  but  a  tang  of  wintriness. 

Ah,  everything  was  pleasant  to  him  on  that  white  morn 
ing  which  nature  had  built  like  a  proper  framework  around 
his  mood.  Again  he  paid  his  respects  to  Bruce  McAllister 
as  a  disappearing  body.  Considering  the  ease  with  which 
Bruce  was  blown  to  one  side,  the  frequency  of  the  compliment 
was  remarkable. 

"  I  wonder,"  he  purred  to  himself  softly,  tracing  a  paral 
lelogram  in  the  snow  with  the  tip  of  his  shoe,  "  if  Georgia 
couldn't  call  Miss — Miss —  what's  her  name?  from  Chicago 
into  requisition  ?  " 

He  smiled  blandly;  it  seemed  to  him  a  neat  stroke  in  di 
plomacy  to  let  the  ironical  Fiske  move  the  squadrons  of  the 
opposition,  and  then  to  checkmate  him  through  the  maneu 
vering  of  his  own  daughter.  It  was  eleven  now.  Cupid's 
smile  hovered  over  the  four  on  the  dial  of  his  watch,  for  at 
that  hour  he  had  an  appointment  with  her.  There  were 
weighty  affairs  that  would  claim  his  coolest  wits  in  the  mean- 
time,  and  he  tried  to  dismiss  the  likeness  he  had  evoked,  but 
the  image  of  the  golden  Georgia  Fiske  Ten  Eyck  persisted. 
The  most  enigmatic  of  smiles  played  around  Sydney's  sensi 
tive  lips.  The  thought  of  the  great  Fiske  shackled  thus  vi 
cariously  may  have  delighted  him.  Politics  was  war,  and  in 
war  all  was  fair. 

Shaw  arose  from  the  bench  with  an  energetic  start, 
walked  along  to  New  Jersey  Avenue,  thence  to  the  Capitol. 
The  snow  began  to  fall  heavier  and  heavier,  then  it  came 
down  in  a  swirl  like  the  swaying  of  white  robes,  fold  on  fold, 
of  some  dancing  sylph.  The  columned  tiers  of  the  Capitol's 
marble,  rising  skyward  to  support  the  lofty  dome,  were  hazy 
in  outline,  half  hidden  from  view.  The  great  dome  itself 

68 


AN  ENEMY  TO  BRUCE 

seemed  to  float  gently  down  from  the  skies  as  if  carved  out 
of  the  unsubstantial  snow,  and  to  settle  down  on  its  massive 
peristyle,  and  Liberty  In  Arms,  Crawford's  successful  statue, 
moved  like  some  goddess  behind  her  veil  of  fleecy  white  clouds 
and  stepped  majestically  into  her  place  on  the  waiting  lan 
tern. 

A  few  minutes  after  Sydney  entered  the  Capitol  and  made 
for  the  room  that  belonged  to  the  Committee  of  Interstate 
Commerce,  of  which  he  was  chairman,  Sir  Anthony  Wyckoff 
left  his  hotel,  walked  hastily  through  Lafayette  Square  and 
passed  into  the  snug  little  White  House.  He  had  an  ap 
pointment  with  the  President  at  a  quarter  past  eleven  pre 
cisely  and  he  hoped,  time  being  money  at  an  exorbitant  rate 
per  minute,  he  wouldn't  be  kept  in  waiting  for  a  second. 
He  managed  to  dodge  the  newspaper  men,  who  had  been  cau 
tioned  to  be  on  the  lookout  for  him,  and  he  met  the  President 
in  the  library. 

The  President  was  under  a  direct  personal  obligation  to 
Sir  Anthony,  for  the  magnate's  influence  had  helped  not  only 
to  nominate  him  in  the  national  convention,  but  his  liberal 
contribution  to  the  campaign  fund  also  had  furthered  the 
prospects  of  the  election.  Moreover,  the  President  leaned  on 
our  merchant  king  for  advice,  believing  that  whatsoever  was 
bad  for  Sir  Anthony  was  bad  for  commerce,  and  vice  versa, 
and  that  in  any  way  to  disturb  the  business  and  vested  inter 
ests  of  the  country  was  to  severely  injure  the  fortunes  of  his 
party.  When  Sir  Anthony  spoke,  commerce  spoke,  which 
after  all  was  the  only  voice  worthy  of  a  consideration  in  the 
United  States;  in  fact,  Sir  Anthony  was  a  silent  member  of 
the  Cabinet  who  never  kept  still  when  any  measure  of  impor 
tance  was  up  for  a  hearing.  Clear-headed,  logical,  direct,  he 
could  make  as  clear  as  day  to  the  President  that  which  the 
jargon  of  others  steeped  in  darkness  and  involved  in  mystery. 

69 


THE   RADICAL 

Anthony  Wyckoff  saluted  the  President  familiarly  by  his 
first  name,  shook  his  hand  without  the  slightest  shadow  of 
condescension,  and  then  made  a  bee-line  for  business.  His 
deep,  rich  voice — one  of  the  chief  sources  of  Anthony's  power 
over  men — rolled  out  melodiously  and  spent  its  eloquence  on 
the  reasons  why  the  foreign  mail  service  was  in  need  of  sub 
sidization.  The  President  gave  Sir  Anthony's  remarks  his 
thoughtful  attention,  promising  to  lend  the  subject  an  ex 
haustive  examination  when  the  bill  came  up  before  Congress. 

Anthony  Wyckoff  hastened  out  of  the  White  House,  cut 
through  Executive  Avenue  and  entered  the  huge  Roman 
esque  building  devoted  to  the  War,  State  and  Navy  depart 
ments.  He  regretted  the  frittering  away  of  his  time,  but  it 
was  necessary  to  urge  the  bill  upon  the  Naval  Committee  of 
the  House.  It  ought  to  take  him  but  a  few  minutes ;  indeed, 
why  should  it  require  more?  The  secretary's  son  had  mar 
ried  Anthony's  second  daughter,  and  the  two  families  were  so 
closely  united  that  what  was  good  for  one  could  do  no  harm 
to  the  other. 

Henry  Kinkaid,  Secretary  of  the  Navy,  was  a  remarkable 
man;  he  had  fine  manners,  gray  hair  and  an  imposing  air. 
He  never  spoke  unless  he  had  something  to  say.  He  was 
the  most  taciturn  man  in  Washington.  He  had  a  wonderful 
memory  for  figures,  the  accuracy  of  which  none  could  dispute. 
During  his  leisure,  when  a  country  banker,  he  had  written 
a  history  of  the  American  navy,  and  since  it  disputed  every 
thing  that  everybody  else  had  said,  it  was  considered  a  re 
markable  book  by  those  who  took  the  word  of  the  author's 
friends  for  it. 

When  Sir  Anthony  took  the  elevator,  ascended  to  the  sec 
ond  floor,  and  walked  down  the  tesselated  floor  of  the  dark 
corridor  to  the  secretary's  office,  he  found  the  usual  crowd  in 
the  outer  room,  but  the  clerk  recognizing  him  at  a  glance 

70 


AN   ENEMY  TO   BRUCE 

announced  him  without  asking  his  name  or  his  business. 
The  inner  door  swung  open,  some  one  else  passed  out,  and 
Sir  Anthony  passed  in.  Arising,  the  secretary  extended  a  cor 
dial  hand.  Anthony  surveyed  him  with  his  cool,  little  cross- 
eyes,  asked  after  the  health  of  his  daughter  and  her  babies 
in  that  deep  compelling  voice  of  his,  and  then  proceeded  to 
business.  Kinkaid  nod'ded  wisely  as  Sir  Anthony  dipped 
deeper  into  the  bill,  and  when  Kinkaid  had  finished  nodding, 
Anthony  removed  his  hat  from  the  table,  gave  a  frightened 
look  at  his  watch,  and  left. 

Anthony  hastened  back  by  the  way  he  had  come,  passed 
by  the  White  House  again  and  made  for  the  Doric  front  of 
the  Treasury  building.  Again  the  ascension  by  elevator,  the 
march  through  the  dark  corridors,  an  entrance  into  the 
crowded  outer  office  with  its  usual  ornaments  of  red  carpet, 
silver  pitcher  and  tray,  old-fashioned  bookcases  full  of  musty 
government  reports,  and  its  walls  hung  with  the  portraits  of 
former  secretaries,  most  of  whose  names  were  now  as  un 
familiar  as  their  faces.  It  was  through  the  Secretary  of  the 
Treasury  that  the  company  would  be  paid  its  subsidies  and 
Anthony  wished  certain  matters  understood  before  the  bill 
became  a  law. 

Secretary  of  the  Treasury  Scarborough's  biography  is 
even  shorter  than  that  of  the  distinguished  Kinkaid.  Be 
fore  entering  the  Cabinet  he  had  been  a  successful  merchant, 
and  when  he  left  it  he  intended  to  become  the  president  of  a 
national  bank  in  New  York,  of  which  the  good  Sir  Anthony 
was  the  principal  stockholder. 

The  moment  the  magnate  put  in  his  appearance  the  sec 
retary's  secretary  bowed  his  chief's  visitors  out  and  Anthony 
in.  Scarborough  was  standing  at  the  end  of  the  long  table, 
littered  with  papers,  that  took  up  almost  one  half  of  his 
narrow  office,  his  back  turned  to  the  cheerful  fire  burning  in 

71 


THE  RADICAL 

the  grate.  Anthony  looked  like  a  child  next  to  the  burly  sec 
retary,  and  Scarborough  seemed  to  feel  the  difference,  for  he 
bent  his  right  leg  and  leaned  down  when  he  shook  hands,  as 
if  to  make  himself  smaller  on  purpose.  Scarborough  was 
far  from  being  what  we  term  a  bad-looking  man,  although 
his  bludgeon-shaped  nose,  his  black  eyes,  and  his  blacker  beard 
and  long  mustache,  the  ends  of  which  projected  far  out  and 
bristled  pugnaciously,  gave  to  him  a  decidedly  fierce  expres 
sion.  A  close  observer  might  have  noted  that  he  wore  a  wig, 
and  a  certain  gossip,  whom  nothing  seems  to  have  escaped, 
remarked:  "  Scarborough  takes  the  credit  for  other  men's 
hair  as  well  as  their  brains.  Little  Vepasian  Vandividvier, 
who  has  been  a  clerk  in  the  department  since  the  year  one, 
does  all  the  work  and  Scarborough  bags  all  the  honors." 

Sir  Anthony  put  his  points  with  a  one-two-threelike  pre 
cision  and  left.  "  The  world  is  a  fire  full  of  roasting  chest 
nuts,"  thought  Anthony — his  conclusion  concerning  catpaws 
was  suppressed. 

Before  another  ten  minutes  Sir  Anthony  was  in  the  spa 
cious  and  more  modern  office  of  the  Postmaster-General,  and 
just  as  he  passed  in,  Mr.  Bruce  McAllister  happened  to  pass 
out.  Their  glances  met,  and  Sir  Anthony  eyed  the  long, 
lank  Westerner  with  a  look  of  surprise.  "  If  that  fellow, 
whoever  he  is,"  he  said  to  himself,  "  was  as  broad  as  he's  long, 
his  arms  would  stretch  around  the  world."  Bruce,  knowing 
the  magnate,  had  the  advantage,  and,  smiling  to  himself,  he 
walked  out  of  the  building.  All  Anthony  asked  of  the  post 
master  was  that  he  should  see  that  the  contracts  were  made 
out  properly  and  officially  approved,  but  since  the  postmaster 
once  had  been  a  high-salaried  lawyer  for  the  Cosmopolitan 
Company,  Anthony  saw  no  reason  why  he  should  put  any 
unreasonable  objections  in  the  way  of  making  the  American 
mail  service  the  finest  in  the  world. 

72 


AN   ENEMY  TO   BRUCE 

When  Sir  Anthony  left  the  post  office,  he  reflected  that 
there  were  two  or  three  more  members  of  the  Cabinet  whom 
he  wished  to  interview,  but  since  the  day  was  growing  late 
and  his  time  more  and  more  limited,  he  resolved  to  walk  back 
to  the  hotel  and  telephone  them  to  come  to  see  him,  since 
Mohammed  was  finding  it  rather  inconvenient  to  go  to  the 
mountain. 


73 


CHAPTER    III 

OUR    HERO    IS    TEMPTED 

WHY  don't  you  squelch  McAllister  once  and  for  all, 
Shaw  ?  "  Ommaney,  chairman  of  the  Judiciary 
Committee  and  friend  to  Sydney,  glanced  cau 
tiously  around  the  high-ceilinged,  frescoed  restaurant  in  the 
House  side  of  the  Capitol.  It  was  practically  empty,  as  yet, 
and  noiseless;  the  colored  waiters,  handling  silverware  and 
dishes,  made  no  audible  sound  as  they  moved  over  the  heavy 
carpets  to  give  a  definite  arrangement  to  the  snow-white 
napery.  Bruce's  recent  defense  before  the  House  of  the  Mc 
Allister  Coupler  bill — the  one  forcing  the  railroads  to  protect 
better  the  lives  and  limbs  of  their  employees — called  forth 
Ommaney 's  gentle  interrogation. 

"  Let  another  toreador  take  his  turn,"  replied  Shaw;  "  I 
have  been  gored  enough  by  that  lean  Western  bull." 

There  was  a  wry  expression  on  Sydney's  handsome  face 
when  he  paid  his  unwilling  tribute  to  Bruce.  It  was  an 
acknowledgment  that  he  had  reached  the  end  of  what  he 
once  considered  his  inexhaustible  resources.  As  Franklin 
De  Wolfe  Fiske  put  it,  Shaw  could  turn  four  corners  into 
eight  and  if  all  the  eight  were  blocked  he  could  devise  a 
ninth. 

"  There  are  other  ways  besides — 

"  Don't  I  know?"  returned  Sydney,  a  little  testily; 
"haven't  I  tried  them  all?" 

74 


OUR   HERO   is   TEMPTED 

The  "  all  "  was  a  general  term  for  Shaw's  specific  gift 
of  gifts — his  magnetism.  It  fairly  streamed  out  of  Shaw. 
He  put  his  arm  on  yours  confidingly,  his  melodious  voice 
fell  caressingly  on  your  ear;  with  one  graceful  gesture  he 
pulled  the  wool  over  your  eyes  and  you  were  Shaw's  from 
that  moment  on ;  let  others  say  about  him  what  they  would. 
Bruce  evidently  was  demagnetized. 

Ommaney  laughed ;  he  enjoyed  the  predicament.  "  I 
had  better  luck  myself.  You're  too  deadly  serious,  Sydney, 
and  you  miss  fire  from  your  over-anxiety  to  hit.  He's  com 
ing  over  to  the  place  to-night  to  take  a  hand  in  a  poker  game. 
I  worked  for  months  before  I  even  dropped  the  invitation." 

"Had  I  better  come?"  Sydney's  eyes  gleamed.  His 
qualities  had  been  challenged. 

"No,  you  fell  flat,"  he  jibed;  "you  had  better  let  me 
handle  him  exclusively.  That  sort  of  a  thing  is  an  art  all  by 
itself." 

"  I  suppose,"  put  in  Shaw  dryly.  "  Only  get  to  work 
quickly.  If  we  don't,  Sir  Anthony  will  be  standing  on  his 
head." 

"My  heavens!"  whispered  Ommaney  drolly,  his  hands 
shooting  upward  in  pretended  horror;  "in  that  case  what 
a  pile  of  money  will  roll  out  of  his  pocket !  " 

Shaw,  his  mind  elsewhere,  paid  his  friend's  wit  the  ques 
tionable  tribute  of  an  absent  smile.  Gradually  the  restau 
rant  filled,  Congressmen  nodding  to  Shaw  familiarly,  sought 
their  places;  with  these  guests  sightseers  and  employees  had 
the  honor  of  rubbing  elbows ;  a  stray  Senator  or  two  conde 
scending  to  permit  the  contact.  Shaw  and  Ommaney  shifted 
their  conversation. 

So  it  was  the  fates  spun  the  threads  that  were  to  entangle 
Bruce  McAllister,  and  so  it  was  that  very  night,  suspicious 
of  no  evil,  he  walked  into  the  web — Ommaney's  luxuriously 

75 


THE  RADICAL 

furnished  apartment  in  the  Oldroyd  building,  which  faces 
Thomas  Circle.  It  was  nine  when  our  hero,  guileless  as  the 
statue  of  General  Thomas — sole  adornment  of  the  compact, 
winter-blighted  park — entered  the  elevator  and  rode  to  the 
top  of  that  gaunt  marble  hive  of  demifashionable  humanity. 
A  colored  man  bowed  him  in  unctuously,  showing  him  a  com 
fortable  chair  in  the  parlor,  suffused  as  with  a  red  haze  from 
the  dim  burning  lamps.  Sensitive  souls  may  be  susceptible 
to  the  insinuating  charm  of  lights  artistically  mellowed,  but 
Bruce  was  not  of  these. 

He  walked  over  to  the  window  and  looked  down  on 
Washington,  tinted  with  the  gold  that  a  full  moon  poured 
down  as  from  an  inexhaustible  censer  aflame  with  its  molten 
contents.  He  could  descry  the  massy  black  outlines  of  the 
Virginian  hills,  the  heights  of  Arlington,  the  sheen  of  the 
broad,  rolling  Potomac,  seizing  Nibelungen  treasures  and 
converting  them,  before  they  sank,  to  its  own  argent  hue.  In 
the  wide  free  stretches  of  the  Mall  the  chain  of  government 
buildings  basked  contentedly  in  the  yellow  glow,  and  farther 
along  the  Washington  Monument,  erect,  lifting  a  majestic 
head  to  the  undisturbed  stars,  stood  soldier  over  the  placid, 
sleeping  night.  Above  it  hung  the  moon,  to  adapt  De  Mus- 
set's  striking  simile,  like  the  dot  over  an  "  i." 

He  had  not  been  invited,  as  he  soon  discovered,  to  survey 
Washington  by  moonlight,  for  he  had  no  sooner  adjusted 
himself  to  the  impression  than  Ommaney's  right  hand  reached 
up  to  his  shoulder,  and  he  exclaimed  with  a  little  more  than 
necessary  fervor:  "  I'm  awfully  glad  you  came.  The  others 
aren't  here  yet — they're  a  little  late." 

Through  clouds  of  cigar  smoke  Bruce  surveyed  Om- 
maney  and  found  him,  as  seen  through  that  extenuating 
medium,  less  sandy  of  hair,  less  freckled  of  complexion,  less 
squat  of  figure.  Ommaney's  conversation  started  at  some 

76 


OUR  HERO  is  TEMPTED 

remote  end  of  the  world — the  inconsequential  anti-foreign 
riots  in  China — and  worked  Washingtonward  as  a  mole 
works  underground.  Bruce  followed,  wondering,  nodding 
his  black  head  thrice  to  every  once  that  his  broad  lips  opened. 
Ommaney  dodged  through  a  complicated  maze  of  words,  dis 
appeared,  threatened  to  lose  himself  and  his  theme  from  sight, 
then  he  bobbed  serenely  to  the  surface  with,  "  The  Trans 
oceanic  promises  to  be  a  big  thing,  McAllister." 

Bruce  nodded. 

"  The  most  substantial  people  in  the  country  are  back 
of  it.  It  can't  help  but  be  one  of  the  great  American  insti 
tutions  if  we  give  it  time  and  encouragement." 

"  Chiefly  encouragement,"  said  Bruce  to  himself,  who  had 
been  broached  before  by  tongues  less  subtly  tempting  than 
Ommaney 's  on  the  Transoceanic.  He  suspected  the  Trans 
oceanic  was  traveling  devious  ways,  but  for  purposes  of  his 
own  he  craved  more  knowledge.  He  nibbled  at  Ommaney's 
bait,  encouraging  him  to  dangle  the  line  until  he  discovered 
the  nature  and  mechanism  of  the  hook. 

"  It  ought  to  be  a  paying  investment  in  time,"  opined 
Bruce,  the  lit  end  of  his  cigar  claiming  his  enigmatic  gaze. 

"Paying!  Why,  my  dear  man,  paying  is  hardly  the 
word,  unless  you  want  to  call  Senator  Withrow's  mine  a  pay 
ing  proposition.  It's  what  I  call  the  opportunity  of  a  life 
time.  You  run  your  shovel  over  the  surface  and  pick  up 
the  gold!  I  don't  know — I'm  not  quite  sure,  but  I  think  I 
know  where  I  might  corral  a  few  shares  for  you  at  a  figure 
ridiculously  low.  The  party  who  owns  them  doesn't  know 
what  he's  got." 

"  The  trouble  is,"  said  Bruce,  his  blue-gray  eyes  leaving 
the  cigar  point  and  fastening  on  Ommaney,  as  if  feeling 
out  in  advance,  like  so  many  fingers,  for  stock  profits,  "  the 
trouble  is,  I'm  short  of  funds  just  now." 

77 


THE   RADICAL 

"  That  can  easily  be  arranged,"  said  Ommaney.  "  It 
can't " 

"  How?"  our  hero  tripped  him  as  he  started  on  glibly 
ahead. 

Seeing  a  bush,  Ommaney  beat  around  it,  only  to  meet 
Bruce  on  the  other  side  of  it.  "  Well,"  he  said,  there  being 
no  egress,  "  I  have  influence  with  the  officers  of  the  company; 
they  will  credit  you  with  stock,  if  I  say  so." 

Then  he  lunged  back  to  where  Bruce  had  dragged  him 
away.  "  It  can't  help  but  be  a  tremendous  thing.  It's  sure 
to  go  this  session,  too.  If  it  does,  watch  the  stock  soar!  My 
dear  man,  you  will  have  to  get  a  ladder  to  reach  it." 

Bruce  pursed  his  long  lips  as  if  to  whistle,  checked  him 
self  in  that  undignified  pursuit,  and  satisfied  the  tendency 
with  a  puff  at  his  cigar.  "  I  don't  know  why,"  he  said 
timidly,  "  but  I  was  afraid  of  it.  I  had  the  idea  that  there 
was  enough  opposition  against  the  bill  to  at  least  hold  it  over 
until  next  session." 

"  Don't  you  ever  believe  it!"  exclaimed  Ommaney. 
"  The  Senate  will  be  for  it  to  a  man,  and  the  House 

The  swarthy  Bruce  held  him  again.  "  But  I  hear  the 
Postmaster-General  and  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury 

Ommaney  bounded  over  the  objection.  "  Don't  you  be 
lieve  it.  I  have  it  from  good  authority  that  they  will  do  all 
they  can  to  assist  Mr.  WyckofL" 

Bruce's  eyes  dropped  their  lids  to  conceal  the  glance  of 
astonishment  mirrored  there  as  he  hastened  to  ask,  "  And 
the  profits?  " 

"They  will  pour  down  a  chute!"  answered  Ommaney 
in  his  boundless  enthusiasm. 

"  The  bill  will  be  drawn  to  shut  out  competition  and 
we  shall  be  given  a  subsidy  of  a  million  and  a  half  for  carry 
ing  letters  alone." 

78 


OUR   HERO   is   TEMPTED 

"I  see !  "  Bruce's  long  legs  twined  around  the  legs  of 
his  chair  as  if  in  excitement  and  he  leaned  forward  to  ask: 
"You  can  count  on  the  Senate,  I  know;  very  good.  But 
the  House?" 

"  I  know  the  men  I  have  talked  to  think  the  bill  will 
have  a  dead  easy  majority." 

Bruce  shook  his  head  as  if  his  skepticism  were  wavering 
and  ready  to  be  convinced.  The  radical  wing  of  the  Democ 
racy  was  against  it  and  in  proof  he  mentioned  this  man  and 
that.  Certain  stalwart  Republicans  were  against  it,  as  wit 
ness  this  man's  name  and  that.  Then,  too,  there  were  con 
servative  Democrats  who  stood  with  the  opposition. 

Ommaney  flew  at  doubt,  shield  lifted  and  spear  leveled. 
"  I'll  prove  it  by  facts,  just  cold,  hard,  solid  facts."  He 
rose,  opened  the  drawer  of  the  big  oak  table,  seized  a  pad  of 
paper  bearing  the  government  stamp,  and  said :  "  Well,  let's 
see.  I'll  write  out  the  list  of  the  members  who  are  for 
it.  I'm  no  good  at  anything  else,  but  I  have  a  memory. 
Under  the  A's  we  have  Abbot,  Abercrombie,  Ardmore — 
and  so  did  he  assemble  the  faithful  under  their  alphabetical 
banners. 

As  the  ranks  thickened,  Bruce's  interest  mounted  to  a 
climax;  he  reached  out  an  eager  hand  for  the  list  and  ran 
an  avid  eye  down  its  serried  columns. 

"  Well,  who's  right  now,  McAllister?  " 

The  ringing  of  the  bell  took  the  answer  from  Bruce's 
lips.  Ommaney  rose,  stretching  out  the  hand  of  ownership 
for  his  property  consigned  for  the  moment  to  a  prospective 
proselyte. 

"  Mr.  Ardmore!  "  announced  the  unctuous  tones  of  the 
colored  man.  Ommaney  frowned ;  Bruce,  as  if  in  polite  con 
sideration  of  his  host,  confided  the  list  to  one  of  the  faithful 
pockets  of  his  coat.  The  host  himself,  relying  on  the  for- 

79 


THE   RADICAL 

tunes  of  the  evening  to  restore  to  him  his  peculiar  property, 
greeted  Ardmore  effusively. 

Strange  are  the  disparate  epithets  that  cling  to  a  man 
in  these,  our  United  States,  for  dapper  Ardmore,  who  looked 
so  beneficent  and  sentimental  with  his  soft,  brown  eyes,  his 
curly,  white  hair  and  his'pointed  white  beard,  is  known  as  the 
"  Hornet  of  the  House."  An  inadvertent  retort,  for  which 
his  tongue,  acting  independently  of  his  mind  in  a  moment  of 
excitement,  must  have  been  responsible,  fastened  the  name 
on  him.  However,  give  a  man  the  name  of  a  hornet  and 
beware  of  him,  and  Ardmore  (who  wouldn't  have  hurt  the 
feelings  of  a  fly,  much  less  of  a  human  being)  was  actually 
feared. 

Ardmore  remarked  that  it  was  cool  and  clear  outside; 
Ommaney  looked  for  the  sting;  then  the  bell  rang  and  the 
unctuous  one,  playing  like  a  poet  with  sonorous  syllables, 
announced :  "  Miss  Scollard,  Mr.  Collins,  Miss  Darcott, 
Mrs.  O'Neill,  Mr.  Roberts." 

Bruce  had  assumed  that  the  festivities  of  the  evening  were 
to  recognize  but  one  of  the  sexes  and  learning  with  a  shock  of 
its  catholicity,  his  hand  made  an  involuntary  movement  to 
ward  his  necktie  and  collar.  Collins,  who  was  from  Chicago, 
and  Roberts,  who  was  from  Pennsylvania,  were  two  mem 
bers  whose  reputations  were  just  creeping  over  the  right  side 
of  oblivion  and  throwing  dust  into  the  public  eye.  Both 
were  serving  third  terms.  The  women  were  luxurious  and 
stately  creatures,  ornate  in  the  matter  of  jewels  and  dress, 
painted  and  powdered  just  sufficiently  to  heighten  rather 
than  hide  their  natural  charms,  which  were  not  a  few. 
Bruce,  without  any  great  flattery  to  the  virtues  of  experience, 
was  trying  to  fix  their  status,  asking  himself  while  he  was 
being  introduced  if  they  came  from  one  of  the  departments 
or  from  the  greater  half-world  that  edges  it. 

80 


OUR   HERO   is   TEMPTED 

Miss  Scollard,  a  blonde,  regular-featured  beauty,  engaged 
him.  In  order  to  break  the  ice,  so  to  say,  she  plied  the 
weather  and  then  proved  her  versatility  and  erudition  by 
conversing  fluently  on  travels  and  sociology.  Did  not  Bruce 
consider  Washington  provincial  as  compared  to  New  York? 
Our  hero,  as  we  have  learned  before,  not  being  absolutely 
sex  proof,  was  finding  that  these  minutes  were  not  altogether 
devoid  of  a  certain  indefinable  attraction. 

Other  men  and  women  entered ;  the  parlor  of  the  apart 
ment  filled  just  sufficiently  to  render  it  seductively  human 
and  warmly  alive.  The  lights  burned  dim,  the  conversation 
hummed  soothingly,  and  our  hero  was  more  and  more  pleased 
that  Miss  Scollard  was  devoting  herself  to  him  signally  and 
alone.  The  man  passed  a  tray  whereon  glimmered  vari 
colored  liquids,  reflecting  various  hues.  Sea-green  in  color 
was  the  one  of  Miss  Scollard's  choice,  while  Bruce  waved  a 
denying  hand.  He  did  not  drink;  his  explanation  savored 
of  an  apology. 

"Not  even  with  me?"  The  creme-de-menthe  touched 
her  mouth  like  a  caress  and  the  long-lashed  eyes  looked  en 
ticingly  on  him  as  if  circumstances  and  not  choice  restrained 
the  lips  to  the  glass. 

"With  you,  if  anybody" — the  answer  was  obvious;  he 
shifted  the  theme ;  she  hinted  at  it  adroitly  again.  He  was — 
oh,  fortunately  for  him! — no  more  susceptible  to  the  siren's 
plea  than  the  glass  her  jeweled  fingers  clasped  enticingly. 

Ommaney  led  the  way  into  the  Dutch  dining  room,  pan 
eled  and  shelved  with  Flemish  oak.  The  players  seated 
themselves  at  the  large  round  table.  Miss  Scollard  and  our 
hero  found  themselves  side  by  side.  She  dropped  her  hand 
kerchief,  his  long  body  stooped  to  pick  it  up;  their  fingers 
crossed  and  she  whispered  flattering  words.  The  tray  made 
itself  conspicuous  again,  its  colors  standing  out  in  a  thick  fog 

81 


THE   RADICAL 

of  tobacco  smoke  like  the  illumined  colors  in  a  druggist's 
window  on  a  dark  night.  Again  came  the  invitation  to 
drink;  again  the  refusal,  equally  positive  though  more  round 
about.  The  handkerchief  dropped  on  the  floor  a  second  time. 

Miss  Scollard  nonchalantly,  as  if  to  set  a  good  example, 
lit  a  cigarette ;  the  other  women  followed  suit. 

"  I  declare,"  laughed  Mrs.  O'Neill,  who  was  the  oldest 
although  far  from  the  least  attractive  of  the  women,  "  I 
don't  see  what  good  it  is  to  have  me  here  for  a  chaperon 
if  you  are  going  to  do  this  sort  of  a  thing  right  under  my 
nose."  Everybody  laughed  save  Ardmore;  who  was  ogling 
the  dashing  Mrs.  O'Neill  with  a  serious  mien,  more  senti 
mental  than  waspish. 

Chips  rattled ;  the  glasses  circulated ;  there  was  the  glid 
ing  noise  of  cards  in  continuous  motion ;  the  game  was  on 
in  earnest.  Bruce  was  looking  at  his  hand  of  cards  specu- 
latively  when  Collins,  of  Chicago,  who  sat  across  from  him, 
sang  out: 

"  I  say,  McAllister,  did  you  know  that  the  Hammer 
smiths  have  rented  the  Lassiter  residence  on  Du  Pont  Circle 
for  the  season?  " 

"  No,  I  didn't." 

"  Being  from  Chicago  I  thought  the  news  would  interest 
you." 

The  observant,  perspicacious  Ommaney  noticed  that 
Bruce's  expression  wavered,  turning  as  it  were  inwardly, 
away  from  the  cards  in  his  hand  to  what  was  going  on  in 
some  far  recess  of  his  mind.  Miss  Scollard,  who  was  less 
perspicacious  and  more  sensitive,  felt  that  from  then  on  our 
attenuated  swarthy  hero  was  slipping  through  the  charms 
she  was  trying  to  draw  tighter  and  tighter  around  him. 

Bruce  played  worse  than  a  novice  and  was  conscious  of 
his  bungling  at  so  much  the  error,  but  still  he  noticed  with  a 

82 


OUR   HERO  is   TEMPTED 

shock  damaging  to  logic  that  his  piles  of  chips  were  growing 
skyward  and  tilting  earthward  like  the  tower  of  Pisa. 

He  became  suspicious  of  good  fortune,  quarreling  with 
her.  "  Somebody,"  he  said  to  himself,  playing  on,  "  is  let 
ting  me  win."  Ommaney's  method  of  removing  financial 
obstacles — his  phrase  "  that  can  be  easily  arranged  " — forced 
Bruce  to  become  contemplative. 

It  came  likewise  to  his  observation  that  Ardmore's  pile 
was  matching  his  own  in  architectural  design,  and  he  con 
cluded  that  it  must  have  been  by  the  same  freak  of  good  for 
tune,  since  that  venerable  statesman's  mind  was  more  occu 
pied  with  the  marblelike  shoulders  of  the  dazzling  Mrs. 
O'Neill  than  with  the  cards  in  his  hand. 

When  the  game  came  to  an  end,  Bruce  was  startled  by 
the  sum  of  gold  into  which  his  leaning  tower  of  ivory  chips 
might  be  converted.  "  I  notice,"  he  spoke  up  suddenly,  fin 
gering  the  spoils  and  glancing  around,  "  that  the  ladies  must 
foot  the  losses.  I'm  no  Chevalier  Bayard  of  the  card  table, 
but  still  I  don't  like  the  idea  that  our  winnings  should 
come  from  the  losses  of  the  fair  sex.  I  leave  my  share  for 
the  young  woman  who  sat  beside  me  and  cheered  me  on  to 
victory." 

Wishing  to  be  overcome,  it  was  easy  to  resist  her  mild 
protest,  and  he  remained  deaf  to  the  objections  of  the  aston 
ished  Ommaney.  Ardmore's  brows  knit  and  he  plucked 
his  snow-white  mustache  and  beard  in  evident  dismay  lest 
he  be  expected  to  follow  suit.  He  was  shrewd  enough  to 
detect  the  cause  of  Bruce's  strange  card-table  conduct,  and  he 
compromised  with  his  conscience  by  promising  to  add  a 
jewel  to  the  collection  of  the  fair  Mrs.  O'Neill,  who  had  not 
left  his  side  during  the  thick  of  the  battle. 

It  was  almost  time  for  the  moon  to  retire  and  make 
way  for  the  sun  when  Bruce  left  the  Oldroyd  apartments 

83 


THE   RADICAL 

and  strolled  with  Ardmore  slowly  along  New  York  Avenue 
toward  home.  Ardmore's  legs,  like  his  emotions,  were 
wavering.  "  I'll  tell  you  what,  McAllister,"  he  lamented 
one  minute,  "  I  think  if  I  had  a  little  more  nerve  I  might 
have  made  a  conquest  of  Mrs.  O'Neill.  Magnificent  wom 
an,  wasn't  she?"  and  the  next  minute,  "I  feel  ashamed 
of  myself,  McAllister;  I  ought  to  be  taken  out  and  horse 
whipped.  I  didn't  do  what  was  right  by  poor  Mrs.  Ard 
more." 

And  when  they  passed  the  Egyptian  fagade  of  the  Hall 
of  the  Ancients — this  reminder  of  a  dead  civilization  may 
have  made  him  sad — he  burst  forth  again.  "  I  wish  I  had 
your  strength  of  conviction,  McAllister.  I  admire  it.  I 
started  out  that  way.  I  meant  to  be  that  way.  I  ought 
not  to  have  taken  that  money.  I  know  what  it  was  meant 
for,  but  still,  when  you  reckon  it  up,  it's  all  according  to 
the  fortunes  of  the  gaming  table." 

Bruce,  accrediting  himself  with  no  superior  morality, 
comforted  the  white-haired  man  whose  arm  clung  to  his  arm, 
whose  round,  bulging  head  bobbed  at  his  shoulder.  The 
balm  served  only  to  bring  a  maudlin  tear  to  his  eye,  and 
when  they  passed  the  marble  Carnegie  library  in  Mount 
Vernon  Square  he  broke  out  once  more: 

"  Especially  just  now,  I  ought  to  have  stood  firm  as  the 
stones  in  that  building;  because  I'm  with  you,  McAllister, 
on  that  child-labor  proposition — I  have  children  of  my  own, 
a  little  boy  and  a  girl,  the  dearest  that  ever  were — you  ought 
to  see  them — I'm  with  you,  I  say,  on  the  child-labor  bill,  and 
I  want  to  be  able  to  tell  them  all  so  and  defy  the  devil.  Sir 
Anthony  needn't  think,  by  God,  that  because  I  come  from 
a  district  run  by  one  of  his  bosses,  he  can  order  me  about. 
See  here,  look  at  the  way  he  writes  me." 

He  fumbled  about  in  his  pocket,  drew  forth  a  package 


OUR   HERO  is   TEMPTED 

of  letters,  torn  envelopes,  and  memoranda,  and  sifted  them 
under  the  steady  glare  of  the  arc  light. 

The  operation  reminded  Bruce  of  the  document  in  evi 
dence  he  had  secured  from  Ommaney  before  the  festivities 
began.  An  expectant  hand  plunged  into  his  pocket,  fondled 
it,  and  found  there  bleak  nothingness.  It  searched  again. 
Nothingness!  Anxiously  it  rifled  other  pockets  and  came 
forth  empty  as  it  had  entered.  Even  so,  thoughts  ransacked 
his  mind  in  search  of  an  explanation  of  its  disappearance  and 
discovered  none.  Ardmore  distracted  him. 

"  Here  it  is;  read  it  for  yourself,  McAllister.  See  the 
way  the  plutocracy  is  ordering  about  the  servants  of  the 
people  put  in  office  to  preserve  a  sacred  trust !  " 

More  out  of  good  nature  than  desire,  rather  to  please 
the  inebriated  Ardmore  than  to  satisfy  himself,  Bruce  opened 
the  folded  sheet  of  note  that  the  Wasp,  more  lucky  than  he 
had  been,  had  driven  to  cover.  He  caught  the  signature  of 
A.  Wyckoff  at  the  bottom  of  it  and  glancing  up  toward  the 
top  of  the  communication,  he  saw  it  bore  in  raised  letters 
the  superscription  of  the  Hotel  Arlington.  The  few  uneven 
lines  read :  "  I  failed  after  several  attempts  to  reach  you  by 
telephone  or  messenger  to-day.  I  want  to  say  to  you  emphat 
ically  that  the  business  interests  of  America  demand  that  the 
McAllister  Anti-Child  Labor  bill  must  not  be  reported 
out  of  committee." 

"  Hm !  "  was  Bruce's  sole  comment. 

"What  do  you  say  to  that?"  asked  Ardmore.  "Are 
eighty  millions  of  people  to  be  commanded  by  the  will  of  one 
man?" 

"  Supposing,"  suggested  Bruce,  "  you  let  me  keep  the  let 
ter.  I  think  I  might " 

"  No,"  said  the  invertebrate  Ardmore,  "  a  letter  is  a 
sacred  trust  and  I  look  upon  it  as  such.  I  revere  its  confi- 

85 


THE   RADICAL 

dences ;  only  I  don't  intend  that  the  powers  of  the  plutocracy 
shall  run  me.  They  never  have  run  James  Whitney  Ard- 
more  and  they  never  shall." 

Bruce  was  unwilling  to  take  advantage  of  a  man  the 
worse  for  liquor  and  he  merely  resolved  to  argue  the  ques 
tion  at  some  future  time  with  Ardmore,  now  he  satisfied 
himself  with  the  caution :  "  Take  care  of  the  letter,  Ard 
more;  see  to  it  that  it  doesn't  pass  out  of  your  hands." 

"  As  I  love  the  suffering  little  children .  of  the  land, 
McAllister,  it  shall  not.  If  that  letter  will  ever  be  of  any 
service  to  you  in  getting  so  meritorious  a  bill  through  the 
committee  on  which  both  you  and  I  have  the  honor  to  serve, 
you  have  only  to  count  on  me  at  any  hour  of  the  day  or 
night.  On  my  word  of  honor!  " 


86 


CHAPTER   IV 
THE  SPEAKER'S  DAUGHTER 

THE  sixteen  privileged  personages  that  sat  around 
the  table  of  the  oblong  frescoed  room  occupied  by 
the  Committee  on  Interstate  and  Foreign  Com 
merce  found  considerable  amusement  in  watching  Sydney 
P.  Shaw  dodge  behind  this  rule  and  take  refuge  within  that, 
as  he  was  steadily  forced  into  the  open  by  the  shrewd  at 
tacks  of  the  lank  Westerner.  Sydney  feared  that  the  child- 
labor  law  would  be  wrenched  from  his  grasp,  or  from  that 
of  his  henchman,  whom  in  his  perplexity,  he  called  upon  to 
protect  it.  Under  the  circumstances  he  was  justified,  per 
haps,  in  losing  his  temper,  which  he  rarely  did.  McAllis 
ter's  persistency,  his  way  of  wounding  with  a  joke  that  won 
laughter  from  all  but  the  object  of  it,  were  enough  to  make 
patience  on  a  monument  change  a  placid  expression  for  a 
frown.  Finally,  Sydney's  tongue  slipped  its  control  but 
clung  to  its  suavity,  and  he  called  the  gentleman  from  Il 
linois  a  name  a  shade  or  two  more  severe  than  the  rules 
wrould  permit,  and  the  one  so  nominated  cared  to  stand. 

Bruce  retorted  in  kind,  in  a  way  that  made  Sydney  quiver 
inwardly,  and  thereto  he  added  the  words,  like  so  many 
feathers  that  were  to  wing  the  barb  forward  and  drive  it 
home: 

"  It  seems,  anyway,  that  the  Committee  on  Interstate  and 
Foreign  Commerce  is  more  in  control  of  a  certain  power 
outside  this  chamber  than  the  chairman  himself." 

87 


THE  RADICAL 

"  What  does  the  gentleman  from  Illinois  mean  to  insinu 
ate  by  that?" 

"  I  insinuate  nothing.  I  put  my  remark  in  the  form  of 
a  charge,  and  .state  that  at  least  one  member  of  this  com 
mittee  has  received  a  letter  from  Anthony  Wyckoff  com 
manding  him  to  do  his  utmost  to  prevent  this  bill  from  leav 
ing  this  room." 

Sydney  blanched  slightly;  his  lids  dropped  over  his  eyes, 
curtainwise,  half  hiding  them  from  view.  "  Will  the  gentle 
man  from  Illinois  say  which  member  of  the  committee  it 
was  that  received  such  a  letter?  " 

"  Certainly.     It  was  the  gentleman  from  Virginia." 

There  was  a  craning  of  necks  toward  the  chair  in  which 
the  Wasp  usually  sat,  but  the  white-haired  romantic  Ardmore 
was  not  in  his  seat,  and  therefore,  not  being  as  ubiquitous 
physically  as  morally,  could  not  be  seen. 

"  I  move  you,"  put  in  Ommaney,  "  the  gentleman  from 
Virginia  being  absent,  that  this  committee  do  now  adjourn 
and  that  the  charge  made  by  the  gentleman  from  Illinois  be 
taken  up  at  the  next  regular  meeting  on  Tuesday." 

The  motion  carried,  and  a  moment  afterwards  Shaw  and 
Ommaney  stood  behind  closed  doors  to  discuss  the  situation, 
which  thirteen  other  more  or  less  excitable  gentlemen  were 
doing  in  various  parts  of  the  Capitol. 

"Well?"  asked  Ommaney  sibilantly. 

"  Well,  the  first  thing  to  do  is  to  put  hands  on  Ardmore 
and  get  that  letter."  Sydney  paid  his  respects  to  the  Wasp 
in  a  fashion  that  showed  he  would  risk  the  danger  of  lay 
ing  hold  of  it  for  the  pleasure  of  plucking  its  sting. 

"  McAllister  may  have  the  letter  in  his  pocket." 

"  That's  to  be  found  out."  Again  Sydney  commended 
Ardmore's  secrecy  in  the  most  laudatory  terms,  and  he  then 
passed  on  to  compliment  Anthony  Wyckoff  for  his  careful- 

88 


THE  SPEAKER'S   DAUGHTER 

ness.  "  I  warned  him  not  to  write  any  letters  right  in  this 
room,  but  he  knew  best — he  always  knows  best — and  I 
suppose  I  no  more  than  got  out  of  here  than  he  made  a  fool 
of  himself  on  paper." 

"  The  whole  country  will  hear  of  this?  " 

"  In  less  than  an  hour.  The  newspapers  will  double 
lead  it.  '  The  Government  Bulldozed  by  Sir  Anthony ! ' 
It  will  stir  up  more  sentiment  in  favor  of  the  Child-Labor  bill 
than  fifty  McAllisters  with  all  their  folderoy  could  do  in 
a  lifetime.  The  walls  of  this  room  aren't  strong  enough 
to  keep  this  bill  here  much  longer;  if  they  do,  McAllister's 
dear  common  people  will  tear  them  down  and  pitch  us  out 
of  the  window."  Sydney  mopped  his  brow.  "  Wyckoff 
will  be  crazy.  But  I  can't  help  it.  It's  his  own  fault." 
He  saw  two  horns  of  the  dilemma;  himself  being  tossed 
through  one  window  by  the  common  people,  his  prospects 
for  the  presidency  being  tossed  out  of  the  other.  He  cursed 
lustily.  Anthony,  Bruce,  and  Ardmore  were  the  trinity  to 
whom  he  paid  his  quaint  homage. 

"  But  what's  to  be  done,  Sydney?  " 

"  Find  Ardmore." 

And  find  him  Shaw  did  that  very  night,  although  his  lieu 
tenant,  who  devoted  the  whole  of  the  day  and  evening  to  the 
task,  failed  signally.  Luck,  it  would  seem,  favors  the  de 
serving,  for  it  would  have  been  no  less  a  personage  than  the 
deity  herself  who  brought  these  two  together  at  the  reception 
given  in  the  Hammersmith  residence. 

The  society  columns  of  the  Washington  papers,  presciently 
cognizant  of  greatness  in  embryo,  numbered  our  hero  among 
those  present.  It  was  eight  o'clock  when  his  herdic  drew 
to  a  halt  before  the  marble  mansion  in  Farragut  Square, 
to  see  which  the  admiral  needed  not  to  have  lifted  his  glasses. 
Bruce  walked  under  the  iron  canopy  of  the  porte  cochere, 
7  89 


THE   RADICAL 

climbed  the  white  marble  staircase,  made  warm  by  the  glow 
of  lights,  colorful  rugs,  and  tropical  plants.  Before  long, 
he  was  paying  his  respects  to  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Hammersmith, 
and  then  his  hand  rested  in  that  of  Inez.  The  long  line 
curved  ahead  toward  the  silver-laden  refreshment  table, 
pushed  on  from  behind  by  those  eager  to  pass  host  and  hostess 
and  reach  the  fleshpots.  The  big  house  and  its  furnishings, 
unobtrusively  luxurious,  was  subdued  to  a  background  for  the 
crowd  that  thronged  it;  and  one  wras  far  less  conscious 
of  its  own  magnificence  than  of  the  brilliant  toilets  it 
threw  into  relief,  the  sheen  of  bare  shoulders,  the  flash 
of  vari-colored  jewels,  from  modest  pearls  to  the  insistent 
gleam  of  sapphire,  ruby  and  amethyst,  loudly  assertive  of 
their  own  hues. 

"  I'm  very  glad  to  see  you,"  Inez  said.  "  The  last  time 
we  met  was  at  Springfield  in  the  governor's  house." 

"  And  the  time  before  that  in  your  house  in  Chicago 
when  Speaker  Fiske  was  there." 

"  I  see  you  have  not  forgotten." 

"  Not  even  the  words  that  passed  between  us,"  he  said. 

"  When  I  am  through  with  my  duties  here  I  will  seek  you 
out  and  there  will  be  more  words  to  be  memorized.  Don't 
run  off,  will  you?  "  she  asked. 

"  Does  the  magnet  speak  so  to  the  steel?"  he  asked  in 
return. 

'  He  was  about  to  move  on,  carrying  with  him  a  picture 
of  her  as  she  stood  thus,  firmly  outlined  in  statuesque  lines 
under  her  pale  blue  gown,  when  she  added : 

"  Let  me  introduce  you  to  my  best  of  friends,  Mrs.  Ten 
Eyck." 

Georgia  Fiske  Ten  Eyck  smiled  upon  him,  voicing  her 
pleasure  at  meeting  the  friend  of  her  father.  "  I  feel  as  if 
I  had  known  you  a  long  time,"  she  said.  Her  graciousness, 

90 


THE  SPEAKER'S  DAUGHTER 

freed  of  effort,  lifted  Bruce  to  the  standing  of  an  acquaint 
anceship  long  established. 

Hers  was  a  golden  and  a  radiant  presence,  and  he  who 
named  her  "  the  golden  Georgia  "  must  have  had  an  unerring 
gift  for  adjectives.  Her  thick  gold  tresses,  graced  as  with 
moonlight,  softened  to  femininity  the  large  face  whose  fea 
tures  might  have  struck  one  otherwise  as  being  too  mascu 
line  in  their  pronounced  strength.  Despite  her  graciousness, 
the  impression  Bruce  carried  away  was  that  of  one  born  to 
command. 

Bruce,  avoiding  the  trains  of  gowns  that  rippled  wavelike 
beneath  him,  picked  out  his  way  along  the  marble  floor. 
His  thoughts  were  with  Inez,  and  absently  he  passed  diplo 
mats,  congressmen,  Cabinet  members,  soldiers  and  sailors 
high  in  rank,  giving  not  even  a  cursory  glance  to  the  pagoda- 
like  structure  that  the  Korean  minister  carried  around  with 
him,  the  black  silk  cap  that  personified  the  wealth  and  power 
of  the  Celestial  empire,  nor  the  fez  of  Turkey,  when  a  hand 
shot  forth  from  out  of  the  crowd  and  caught  him  by  the  arm. 
Addison  greeted  him:  "Hello,  Bruce,  old  chap!  My,  but 
I'm  glad  to  see  you.  You're  a  sight  for  sore  eyes.  There  comes 
old  Senator  Freeze  with  one  of  his  shriveled  stories — let's 
dodge  him."  He  led  Bruce  to  the  head  of  the  Caen  stone 
staircase,  just  beyond  the  reach  of  the  crush.  A  huge  Ital 
ian  jar — it  had  done  service  for  a  well  in  days  long  since 
past — filled  with  American  beauties,  shaded  them  from  the 
glow  of  the  electrics.  "  Yes,  Bruce,"  he  went  on,  "  I'm 
awfully  glad  to  see  you.  I  came  from  Chicago  to  attend  this 
reception.  I  don't  care  much  about  it,  do  you?  More  or 
less  of  a  bore.  It  doesn't  seem  to  me  that  they  left  many 
out.  Well,  that's  the  tendency  nowadays;  everybody  wants 
to  be  just  as  good  as  anybody  else  and  it  doesn't  make  any 
difference  who  your  parents  were.  Tell  me,  Bruce,  where 

91 


THE  RADICAL 

is  it  all  going  to  end?  It  reminds  me  of  the  reception  we 
had  at  our  house  when  they  sent  me  to  the  council."  He 
laughed  heartily,  shaking  his  straw-colored  head. 

"Do  you  like  the  council  any  better?  " 

"  Not  so  very  much.  Still  it  pleases  the  family,  so  I  keep 
on.  You  have  been  doing  famously  yourself,  haven't  you? 
I've  been  reading  all  about  it  in  the  papers  and  I  tell  you 
what,  I'm  proud  of  you.  Of  course,  1  don't  take  much  stock 
in  your  talk  about  the  poor  and  all  that  sort  of  rubbish — I 
suppose  it's  just  politics  with  you  and  I  don't  blame  you  for 
it — but  you're  doing  famously  all  the  same.  Everybody 
says  so.  Excuse  me,  there's  Ruth  Wyckoff,  I'll  have  to  leave 
you  to  speak  to  her.  I'll  be  back  in  a  moment."  Addison 
left  the  harbor  he  had  found  for  his  friend  and  pushed  out 
midway  in  the  swirling  torrent  of  humanity,  scurrying  this 
way  and  that  through  the  great  reception  rooms  and  the 
halls. 

Bruce  stood  for  a  moment  undecided  whether  to  remain 
in  seclusion  where  he  was,  or  to  navigate  across  the  shimmer 
ing  sea  of  silks  toward  the  dining  room,  where  Edward  Don 
ovan  Butler,  his  eyes  peering  through  his  glasses  like  those 
of  a  hawk  on  wing,  espied  Bruce.  Butler,  lifting  his  arm, 
thereby  nearly  depriving  the  worshiping  Korean  of  his  pa 
goda,  waved  a  hand  of  recognition.  He  made  toward  Bruce 
slowly,  stopping  to  shake  hands  and  pass  a  word  with  this 
dignitary  and  that. 

Fate,  propitious  to  their  friendship,  had  induced  the 
Chicago  Democrat  to  send  little  Butler  to  Washington  as 
its  correspondent  a  year  or  so  before  Bruce's  arrival.  It  was 
to  prepare  the  way  for  Bruce,  he  said,  deeply  devoted  as  ever 
to  the  cause  his  comrade  of  the  pit  and  he  had  espoused  in 
common. 

"  Holy  High  Jinks !  "  shouted  Butler,  reaching  Bruce  at 
92 


THE   SPEAKER'S   DAUGHTER 

length,  his  face  elongated  to  a  superlative  degree,  "  but  youVe 
done  it  now!  You've  given  the  whole  country  a  fillip  sure 
enough!  I've  been  hunting  all  over  creation  for  you.  That's 
all  people  are  talking  about  to-night,  is  that  letter.  I  saw 
Anthony  Wyckoff  himself  here  talking  with  Shaw.  He 
probably  came  over  from  New  York  on  a  special  train.  I 
told  you  to  wait  and  take  it  easy,  didn't  I  ?  " 

"  I  waited  until  the " 

"  Confound  the  psychological  moment.  The  question  is 
can  you  deliver  the  goods?" 

"  Of  course  I  can,  Ed." 

"  Have  you  got  the  letter?  " 

"  No,  but  Ardmore  has." 

"Ardmore's  got  it;  that's  rich,  that  is!  And  you've 
banked  your  whole  fortune  on  a  letter  that  Ardmore  has  in 
his  pocket?  Well,  supposing  he  refuses  to  show  it,  then 
what?" 

"  He  promised  me  on  his  word  of  honor " 

"  I  wouldn't  give  you  that  for  the  promise  of  that  wobbly, 
weak-kneed,  sentimental  old  idiot." 

"  You're  excited,  Ed." 

"  Well,  I'll  stay  excited,  too,  until  that  letter  is  in  your 
pocket.  Have  you  seen  Ardmore?  He's  here  somewhere. 
I  just  saw  him  come  in  a  few  minutes  ago." 

"  He'll  find  me  then,  "  smiled  the  confident  Bruce,  slip 
ping  his  hands  into  his  pockets. 

Butler's  long  jaw  elongated,  but  Bruce  grasping  his  arm 
affectionately,  stopped  his  ejaculation  with  the  remark:  "  Say, 
Ed.,  Fiske's  daughter  has  a  remarkably  interesting  face.  You 
know  everybody ;  tell  me  something  about  her." 

"  Oh,  she's  a  better  politician  than  her  father!  "  started 
Butler  in  his  nervous  energetic  manner.  "  She  was  born 
here  in  Washington  and  bred  in  politics.  Her  mother  was 

93 


THE   RADICAL 

an  Italian,  who  cut  quite  a  figure  in  diplomacy  in  her  day. 
They  say  Fiske  wasn't  happy  with  her;  she  ended  in  some 
peculiar  way;  but  I  don't  know  about  that.  Georgia  Fiske 
herself  was  educated  over  in  Europe  and  didn't  come  back 
until  she  was  sixteen.  They  tell  me  the  President's  wife 
took  a  great  fancy  to  her.  The  old  girl  came  from  the  raw 
West  and  didn't  know  the  proper  way  of  running  things  and 
Georgia  used  to  help  her  out.  It  was  born  in  her.  They 
say  the  little  minx  got  to  running  things  too  well,  for  she 
soon  wormed  herself  into  the  President's  favor  and  the  poli 
ticians  had  to  reckon  with  her.  There  are  several  men  in 
Washington  now,  who  were  nothing  but  clerks  then,  who 
owe  their  high  position  to  the  wires  Georgia  Fiske  pulled, 
when  she  wras  hardly  out  of  short  dresses.  She  was  a  power 
behind  the  throne  all  right,  and  naturally  she  grew  tired  of 
that  and  she  wanted  to  get  on  the  throne  herself.  Those 
who  know  say  Fiske  didn't  have  the  presidential  bee  until 
she  put  it  in  his  bonnet.  He  was  Chairman  of  the  Com 
mittee  on  Ways  and  Means  then,  and  she  kept  on  telling  him 
how  much  abler  he  was  than  the  President,  and  how  much 
better  he  was  fitted  to  hold  the  job." 

Butler  paused  suddenly,  waving  a  hand  to  a  familiar 
face  in  the  throng.  "  There's  Cummings  of  the  Telegram. 
I  want  to  speak  to  him.  I'll  finish  the  story  some  other 
time."  Bruce,  knowing  that  delay  would  leave  his  curiosity 
only  half  satisfied,  held  him. 

"  Well,"  went  on  Butler  reluctantly,  "  do  you  know  she 
finally  got  her  father  to  believe  that  if  he  didn't  land  in  the 
White  House  his  life  would  be  a  failure?  She  played  on  his 
weaknesses  and  cajoled  him  into  thinking  he  was  predestined 
for  the  job.  Before  he  knew  it  she  had  him  wound  up  in 
a  plot  that  just  about  split  up  a  cabinet.  It  raised  quite 
a  scandal  at  the  time,  and  that's  the  real  reason  why  Fiske 

94 


THE   SPEAKER'S   DAUGHTER 

didn't  take  the  job  of  Secretary  of  State  when  they  offered 
it  to  him." 

"  But  where  does  Ten  Eyck  come  in?  " 

' '  That's  a  fact:  I  nearly  forgot.  Ten  Eyck  was  a  for 
mer  Senator  from  Massachusetts,  a  manufacturer,  one  of  the 
richest  in  the  country  at  the  time,  and  Georgia  Fiske  married 
him  when  he  was  old  enough  to  be  her  grandfather.  They 
say  Fiske  was  bitterly  opposed  to  it  and  that  he  fought  it 
right  up  to  the  last  moment;  but  she  is  just  as  hard-headed 
as  Fiske  himself  and  she  had  her  way.  Her  reason?  Oh, 
I  suppose  she  wanted  the  power  that  money  would  give  her 
to  help  her  father  into  the  presidency.  You  can't  run  a  presi 
dential  campaign  without  money,  nor  a  convention  either." 

Butler  paused,  gazing  through  the  throng  as  if  in  search 
for  somebody,  and  Bruce  asked,  "  What  became  of  Ten 
Eyck?" 

"  I  don't  know.  My  knowledge  stops  short  with  the 
fact  that  he  died  just  after  he  and  Georgia  Fiske  were  di 
vorced.  There  was  quite  a  scandal,  although  it  was  hushed 
up  pretty  well.  Sydney  P.  Shaw  was  caught  in  it  some 
where,  so  one  of  the  boys  told  me,  but  with  his  usual  foxiness 
he  dug  from  under.  I  understand  that  Fiske's  bitter  ironi 
cal  manner  dates  from  the  divorce.  He  felt  somehow  that 
he  had  sacrificed  his  daughter's  future  and  good  name  to  an 
empty  ambition,  and  now  he  holds  himself  in  duty  bound  to 
gain  her  heart's  desire  for  her."  He  ended  suddenly. 
"  There's  Cummings  again!  " 

He  vanished,  waving  his  hand  like  a  drowning  man  about 
to  disappear  under  water.  Bruce  laughed,  and  hunger  call 
ing  him  again,  he  made  for  the  middle  of  the  stream.  The 
strong  hand  of  Fiske  clutched  him.  "  Well,  McAllister, 
a  man  who  laughs  at  himself  usually  nourishes  the  illusion 
that  he  is  smiling  good-naturedly  at  the  mistakes  of  the  wise." 

95 


THE  RADICAL 

They  sought  the  shelter  of  the  Italian  well,  from  the 
depths  of  which  peeped  the  full-plumed  roses,  their  foliage 
hanging  caressingly  toward  Fiske's  light  brown  hair.  A 
Washington  gossip  remarked  of  Fiske  that  his  immense  frame 
— he  was  a  full  inch  and  a  half  shorter  than  Bruce  but  far 
more  solid — was  only  a  servant  to  his  majestic  head;  a  sort 
of  a  bodyguard  that  carried  the  invincible  weapon  around 
for  him. 

It  was  a  fine  head,  to  be  admired  in  life,  to  be  marveled 
at  when  its  proportions  should  be  immortalized  in  marble. 
His  jaws  were  set  on  iron  springs,  slow  to  shut,  slower  still 
to  open.  Shaggy  eyebrows  gave  a  fierce  and  firm  expression 
to  his  deep-set  gray  eyes  that  looked  out  at  you  as  from  a 
cave  that  it  was  worth  your  life  to  enter.  Fiske's  eyes  were 
the  watchdogs  of  his  mind.  His  complexion,  bronzed  and 
dark,  seemed  tinged  with  iron,  and  his  wrinkled  and  furrowed 
face  was  more  akin  to  iron  than  flesh.  Moreover,  irony  was 
his  habitual  method  of  conversation.  He  spoke  to  bruise 
or  he  held  his  peace.  The  hammer  symbolized  the  man. 
Our  gossip  said  that  Fiske's  coat  of  arms  ought  to  be  a 
hammer  dexterous  crashing  down  on  heads  sinister  emblaz 
oned  on  a  field  of  fools. 

"  You  forced  Shaw's  hand  at  any  rate,"  said  Fiske  to 
Bruce  after  they  had  chatted  for  a  while.  "  I  don't  suppose 
all  the  king's  horses  can  keep  the  bill  back  of  the  door. 
Henceforth  it's  beyond  the  reach  of  even  my  power,"  he 
laughed  ironically. 

11 1  counted  on  its  forcing  the  issue,"  said  Bruce. 

"  But  see  to  it,  McAllister,  that  you  get  the  letter."  The 
big  Speaker  slipped  his  hands  into  his  pockets  and  looked  on 
the  crowd  around  him  with  a  sort  of  Shakespearean  scorn. 
Fiske  hated  the  mob.  His  ideal  form  of  government  would 
have  been  a  republic  with  an  autocrat  to  forbid  voting. 

96 


THE  SPEAKER'S   DAUGHTER 

"  And  supposing,"  asked  Bruce  tentatively,  when  Fiske 
looked  as  if  he  would  pass  on,  "  the  bill  gets  on  the  floor?  " 

"  I  may  tell  you  my  opinion  of  it  then,  and  I  may  prefer 
to  reserve  my  judgment  until  a  future  date,"  he  answered 
ambiguously. 

Fiske,  son  of  a  farmer  though  he  was,  buffeted  by  for 
tune  though  he  had  been,  was  an  aristocrat  through  and 
through,  and  he  had  small  sympathy  for  Bruce's  point  of 
view.  For  years  he  had  represented  vested  interests  in  court 
and  he  had  naturally  assumed  their  attitude.  He  accepted 
the  life  and  manners  of  the  rich  folk  who  paid  him  so  hand 
somely  as  being  eminently  fit.  That  capital  could  do  no 
grievous  wrong  was  one  of  the  cardinal  points  of  Fiske's 
creed,  and  he  was  ever  ready  to  praise  the  humanitarianism 
of  the  capitalists  for  the  patience  and  kindliness  with  which 
they  met  the  unreasonable  demands  of  childish  labor.  He 
was  broad  enough,  however,  to  forgive  labor,  saying  it  knew 
not  what  it  did  one  half  the  time,  being  so  indolent. 

"  When  you  get  Shaw  cornered,"  ended  Fiske  with  a 
drawl,  moving  off,  "  come  and  call  me,  McAllister,  and  I'll 
watch  you  nail  the  lid  down." 

"Yes,  Sydney's  slippery!" 

"Slippery!"  Fiske's  face  settled  firmly.  "He  moves 
like  the  snake.  I  was  born  to  hate  all  creeping  things, 
McAllister." 

The  quarrel  between  the  Speaker  and  Shaw  was  of  long 
standing;  it  owed  its  origin  to  that  fundamental  difference 
in  temperament  between  honesty  and  dishonesty,  and  the 
Speaker  was  reckless  enough  to  express  his  opinion  of  men 
regardless  of  consequences.  In  politics  an  opinion  expressed 
is  an  enemy  made  and  Fiske  was  politician  enough  to  know 
that,  and  man  enough  not  to  care.  He  was  that  oddity  in 
American  life — a  successful  politician  without  policy.  Abil- 

97 


THE   RADICAL 

ity  had  lifted  him  to  where  he  was ;  he  scorned  to  lean  on  the 
shoulder  of  craft,  compromise  and  deceit  for  advancement. 
Bruce  barely  stepped  beyond  the  shadow  of  the  rose- 
filled  well  when  he  heard  Ardmore's  familiar  voice  in  soft 
expostulation  floating  down  from  above  him,  and  looking 
up  he  saw  the  gentleman  from  Virginia  seated  with  Sydney 
P.  Shaw  and  Georgia  Fiske  Ten  Eyck  on  a  marble  bench 
in  a  corner  of  the  broad  landing  of  the  staircase.  Sydney's 
voice,  murmuring  scarcely  audible  words,  gradually  died 
away  in  the  trio.  Georgia's  flutelike  tones  supplanted  him. 
A  second  later  Shaw  left,  mingling  with  the  crowd  below. 
His  figure  was  distinguished  among  even  so  many  distin 
guished  men  and  women. 


CHAPTER   V 

THE   CITY   OF    HOPE 

THE  soft  glow  of  the  electrics,  subdued  to  an  inviting 
timidity,  the  heartier  hospitality  of  the  red  marble 
Languedoc  buffet  and  mantel,  the  gleam  of  the  sil 
verware  and  its  inner  fine  fragrance,  were  steadily  attracting 
rivulets  of  people  from  the  main  stream  into  the  dining  room. 
Bruce  finally  found  his  way  into  this  Mecca  of -the  hungry 
and  he  just  had  started  to  regale  himself  when  Inez  entered, 
leaning  on  the  arm  of  a  young  man  whose  broad  straight 
shoulders  called  for  attention  before  his  round  inconspicuous 
head.  She  saw  Bruce  and  smiled,  guiding  her  escort  in  his 
direction  and  introducing  him  as  Lieutenant  Glenn  Dodson 
of  the  navy.  The  lieutenant's  conversation  was  by  no  means 
as  broad  as  his  shoulders,  nor  as  deep  as  his  chest.  He  ran 
to  monosyllables. 

A  few  moments  afterwards  Inez  directed  a  retreat 
through  the  crowded  rooms  to  a  more  secluded  corner,  the 
willing  Bruce  at  her  heels.  They  found  the  marble  bench, 
clasped  armlike  by  a  sheltering  curve  in  the  stairs,  occupied 
earlier  in  the  evening  by  Georgia  Fiske  Ten  Eyck  and  Ard- 
more,  but  centuries  ago  perhaps  the  mute  confidant  of  Flo 
rentine  intrigue  and  loves.  A  Persian  rug  thrown  across  the 
balustrade  dropped  its  rich  folds  toward  the  marble,  and  by 
the  sharp  contrast  it  made  between  color  and  the  lack  thereof, 
threw  the  nook  into  a  sort  of  Oriental  relief.  The  strong 

99 


THE   RADICAL 

statuesque  lines  of  Inez's  figure,  her  nude  shoulders,  her  well- 
poised  head,  were  detached  from  surroundings  that  refused, 
as  it  were,  to  harmonize  in  order  to  absorb  her  in  the  decora 
tive  scheme. 

"  Now,"  she  said,  seating  herself,  "  we  are  in  a  place 
where  we  can  talk." 

"  I  can  do  that  anywhere — to  you." 

"  What,  has  Washington  already  had  that  effect  on 
you?  "  She  turned  her  brown  eyes  full  upon  him.  She  won 
dered  why  she  found  no  longer  the  sheer  ugliness  that  previ 
ous  experience  and  impressions  made  her  expect  to  find  again. 
Use  and  acquaintanceship,  like  a  kindly  artist,  had  softened 
for  her  critical  glances  the  ugliness  of  his  features,  the  coarse 
ness  of  his  facial  lines.  To  her  he  had  become  picturesquely 
ugly,  like  a  pile  of  rugged  rock,  like  a  stanch  hill  in  a  bleak 
landscape.  To  be  ugly  in  that  fashion  is  a  distinction — 
one  that  few  crave. 

His  wandering  wits  rallied  to  answer  her  exclamation 
with,  "  Do  you  infer  the  farther  one  leaves  Chicago  behind 
the  farther  one  is  removed  from  the  primitive  virtues?  " 

So  they  sparred  for  a  while,  bridging  over  the  awkward 
chasm  dug  by  a  period  of  separation.  In  him,  as  in  life  itself, 
she  still  retained  an  avid  intellectual  interest,  not  unmixed 
with  the  promptings  of  curiosity.  His  own  reason  for  at 
tachment  to  her  was  not  so  conscious,  and  it  may  have  been 
the  deeper  in  that  the  finger  of  analysis  did  not  fall  so  pat 
upon  it.  The  charm  of  her  beauty  exerted  over  his  senses 
was  considerable,  but  there  was  something  that  was  as  widely 
separated  from  her  mere  beauty  as  he  himself  from  her  who 
lured  him  on.  There  was  also  in  him  an  eager  desire  to 
overcome  the  coldness  she  interposed  between  him  and  his 
rising  affection.  Had  each  never  seen  the  other  again  after 
their  third  or  fourth  meeting  their  romance  might  have  ended 

100 


THE   CITY  OF  HOPE 

in  curiosity  unsatisfied ;  as  it  was  now,  curiosity  satisfied  bade 
fair  to  end  in  romance.  And  finally  we  believe  in  the  law  of 
romance,  however  it  may  differ  from  that  of  the  spheres,  that 
two  bodies  moving  in  different  orbits  are  often  more  attracted 
than  repelled. 

"  I  presume,"  he  said,  directing  his  aimless  conversation 
toward  an  end,  "  that  it  was  the  desire  to  play  upon  a  bigger 
stage  that  brought  you  to  Washington." 

"  Yes,  my  own  desire  and  Georgia  Fiske  Ten  Eyck's  ap 
peal.  Do  you  know  her?  Don't  you  admire  her  ?  Isn't  she 
wonderful  ?  She  visited  us  when  her  father  was  trying  his  law 
suit  against  one  by  the  name  of  McAllister.  She  won  us 
all  over  so  easily.  She  was  born  to  direct  and  lead.  When 
I  see  her  and  watch  her  and  listen  to  her  I  would  give  any 
thing  to  be  like  her!  " 

He  would  not  have  believed  her  capable  of  such  enthusi 
astic  admiration  for  another,  and  it  may  have  awakened  in 
him  a  pang  of  regret  that  it  was  squandered  on  a  member  of 
her  own  sex.  Fearing  that  she  might  come  under  the  selfish 
sway  of  the  intriguing  Georgia,  there  arose  in  him  a  faint 
warning  cry,  clumsily  wrorded,  but  this  a  second  thought, 
annoyed  by  its  very  clumsiness,  suppressed. 

"  I  don't  know  whether  the  stage  you  have  chosen  is 
greater  than  the  one  you  have  left,"  he  said,  scorning  an  ob 
vious  enough  compliment  to  shift  the  conversation  forward. 

"  And  why  do  you  say  so  ?  " 

The  question  evoked  a  discourse  on  a  theme  over  which 
his  love  of  speculation  had  played  for  months.  To  him, 
Washington  was  a  city  of  swaggering  negations,  devoted  en 
tirely  to  generating  the  power  that  was  used  to  turn  the 
gigantic  machinery  of  production  situated  afar.  It  was 
merely  a  bureau  that  permitted  the  rest  of  the  United  States 
to  work,  and  receiving  that  permission,  the  big  men  of  the 

101 


THE   RADICAL 

country  hastened  home  to  put  it  into  operation.  In  a  land 
of  prodigious  activities  Washington,  capital  of  the  nation, 
was  the  only  city  that  impressed  one  with  a  sense  of  leisure. 
It  had  atmospheres,  diplomatic,  legislative,  scientific,  naval, 
military,  but  in  a  compelling  sense  it  had  no  atmosphere  at 
all.  He  ended  by  saying  that  thousands  were  drawn  to  it 
as  a  city  of  hope,  and  departed  from  it  crushed  and  heart 
broken  as  from  a  city  of  despair. 

"  Surely  your  darker  view  of  Washington  is  not  justified 
by  the  way  the  city  has  treated  you.  From  all  I  hear  on  all 
sides  you  are  making  rare  headway." 

"  Beyond  my  most  sanguine  expectations ;  which  reminds 
me  of  Isaac  Newton,  the  ignorant  old  Quaker  who  was  Sec 
retary  of  Agriculture  under  Lincoln.  When  his  expenses 
ran  too  high  he  was  called  on  for  an  explanation  by  the  com 
mittee.  Newton  spluttered,  talked  pedantically  and  said 
finally :  '  Yes,  sir ;  the  expenses  have  been  very  great,  marvel- 
ously  so,  I  may  say;  indeed,  sir,  they  have  succeeded  beyond 
my  most  sanguine  expectations.'  " 

"  I  insist  on  taking  you  seriously,  despite  yourself.  You 
have  put  the  whole  country  on  edge.  Yourself,  the  charges 
you  raised  in  the  committee  room,  and  Mr.  Ardmore's  letter 
are  the  sole  topics  of  this  evening's  conversation.  I  might 
have  been  bored  had  it  been  about  another.  I  find  it  excit 
ing  as  it  is.  I  judge  the  letter  of  great  importance." 

"  My  future  and  the  future  of  the  anti-child  labor  bill 
depend  upon  it." 

"And  you  have  this  letter  in  your  possession?"  Her 
brown  eyes  fastened  on  his  swarthy  face  as  if  she  were  eager 
to  share  in  a  confidence  not  divulged  to  the  rest  of  the  world. 

He  considered  a  second.  "  I  put  confidence  in  you.  Mr. 
Ardmore  has  it." 

"  And  if  he  will  not  surrender  it?  " 

102 


THE   CITY  OF   HOPE 

"  I  have  his  promise." 

"  And  if  he  breaks  that  promise?  " 

"  I  had  considered  that  emergency  as  out  of  the  question. 
It  might  make  me  ridiculous  and  doom  my  child-labor  bill 
to  failure." 

"  And  is  it  very  dear  to  your  heart?  " 

"  As  the  blood  that  warms  it." 

He  made  his  knowledge  of  child-labor  conditions  her 
own,  summing  up  for  her  in  minutes  the  results  that  hours 
had  amassed  for  him.  He  marched  before  her  eyes,  opening 
wide  at  the  vigor  of  his  speech  and  the  intensity  of  his  feeling, 
a  procession  of  the  children  of  his  people,  pale,  hollow-eyed, 
driven  by  the  whip  of  Greed  along  the  hideous  road  that  lies 
between  the  homes  of  want  and  the  mills  of  Mammon.  ,  The 
light  of  passion  struck  here  and  there,  illuminating  a  wan 
face  among  the  thousands  that  composed  the  throng,  throw 
ing  a  sinister  gleam  on  the  sorry  details  of  the  life  of  children 
that  know  no  childhood. 

A  light  wavered  over  her  brown  eyes,  and  had  he  been 
less  absorbed  in  what  he  was  saying,  more  watchful  of  its 
effect  on  her,  he  might  have  observed  that  her  countenance 
had  in  it  no  suggestion  of  coldness,  that  it  was  warmed  as 
from  the  glow  of  some  inner  spiritual  fire  that  his  words  had 
kindled. 

It  was  somehow  as  if  a  little  child  had  led  her  into 
poverty's  undesirable  kingdom.  She  saw  its  tatterdemalion 
hordes  step  out  of  the  cover  of  books  where  comfort  had  found 
it  convenient  to  confine  them,  and  take  on  a  personal  blood 
and  flesh  existence,  each  one  in  the  mass  as  sentient  as  Inez 
Hammersmith  herself,  with  like  organs  and  dimensions  that 
craved  as  ardently  life's  boons,  but  whom  a  blind  law  of 
chance  had  subjected  to  life's  miseries. 

She   had,   too,   ceased    to   weigh   him   in   the   scales   of 
103 


THE   RADICAL 

sincerity,  her  very  coolness  of  intellect  and  her  coldness  of 
temperament  helping  her  to  see  that  his  statements  were  of 
themselves  false  or  true,  and  that  to  cry  him  demagogue 
was  another  way,  invented  by  comfort,  of  making  a  worthy 
doctrine  ridiculous  by  belittling  the  character  of  its  ex 
pounder. 

There  had  been  in  her  a  sort  of  revulsion  and  the  process 
had  turned  face  and  was  acting  the  other  way  about.  The 
doctrines,  weighed  in  the  scales  of  sincerity,  were  not  found 
wanting,  and  therefore  she  was  inclined  to  believe  that  the 
preacher  of  them  was  lifted  from  demagogism  by  the  very 
sanctity  of  what  he  taught.  If  one  entered  the  temple,  one 
was  warmed  by  its  heat  and  lit  by  its  light.  Moreover,  being 
human,  outside  influences  were  having  their  effect  on  Inez. 
Even  those  who  denounced  Bruce  most  bitterly  praised  his 
sincerity,  and  a  cynical  world  pronounced  him  mistaken  but 
honest.  The  steady  pressure  of  Inez's  fairness  forced  her 
stubbornness  of  intellect  and  of  pride  to  loosen  its  hold  on 
what  it  first  had  clung  to,  and  grasp  the  less  tempting  but 
more  just  position. 

"  I  wish  that  I  might  help  you,"  was  her  only  comment 
when  at  length  she  spoke. 

"  Help  me,  or  my  cause? "  he  asked,  tempted  by  the 
warmth  of  voice  that  showed  plainly  that  her  interest,  like 
an  eager  explorer,  had  passed  out  of  the  cold  domain  of 
intellect  into  the  sunnier  regions  of  feeling. 

"  How  can  I  separate  the  two?  "  she  was  about  to  ask. 
But  rising  she  said  instead :  "  Other  duties  call  me,  some  of 
them  quite  urgent."  It  was  as  if  she,  despite  herself,  would 
impress  upon  him  the  fact  that  her  attitude  toward  him 
was  altogether  impersonal. 

Somewhat  nonplused,  he  left  her  to  begin  his  quest,  reck 
lessly  postponed,  for  Ardmore;  and  he  found  that  gentleman 

104 


THE   CITY  OF  HOPE 

as  he  was  marching  up  the  stairway  in  search  for  his  hat 
and  coat.  Bruce,  on  the  same  errand,  slipped  an  arm  in  his. 

"  You  know  what's  happened,  Ardmore,  of  course.  I 
see  the  army  of  the  opposition  has  sent  its  cohorts  after  you. 
I  shall  need  the  letter  Tuesday." 

"  What  letter?  "    Ardmore's  legs,  like  his  voice,  wobbled. 

"  What  letter !  "  Bruce  felt  something  give  way  in 
side  of  him.  "  The  Wyckoff  letter,  the  one  you  showed  me 
the  night  coming  home  from " 

"  Oh,  yes,  McAllister,  I  remember  now.  The  fact  is, 
you  see,  you  put  me  in  a  delicate  position,  in  a  very  delicate 
position.  Shaw's  my  friend  and  you're  my  friend,  and  I 
don't  want  to  do  anything  that  will  reflect " 

"  I  know  all  that,  but  you  promised.  The  whole  fate 
of  the  child-labor  bill  is  locked  up  in  that  letter  now.  I'm 
simply  compelled  to  make  good  or  make  a  fool  of  myself." 
He  drew  Ardmore  in  a  corner  of  the  hallway  and  appealed 
to  his  sympathies  for  the  little  children,  with  all  the  eloquence 
at  his  command. 

Ardmore's  eye  watered.  "  Count  on  me,  McAllister. 
My  word  of  honor !  The  children  of  America  shan't  suffer. 
No !  no !  I  should  feel  as  if  I  had  wronged  my  little  boy  and 
girl — beautiful  children,  by  God!  Count  on  me!  I'll  de 
liver  the  letter  in  the  committee  room  on  Tuesday." 

"You  promise  faithfully?" 

"  My  word  of  honor,  McAllister.  Dismiss  it  from 
your  mind.  Forget  it,  my  son.  Ardmore  of  Virginia  says 
so." 

Just  before  midnight,  on  the  point  of  taking  his  departure, 
Bruce  faced  the  wrought-iron  and  glass  doors  of  the  spacious 
exit.  Behind  and  in  front  of  him  on  the  staircase  was  the 
crowd  of  men  and  women,  yawning,  weary,  their  festive  gar 
ments  out  of  joint  with  their  fatigued  bearing.  Outside 
8  105 


THE  RADICAL 

he  descried  a  line  of  equipages  moving  across  the  lighted 
surface  of  the  porte  cochere  like  big  black  shadows,  and  the 
chug-chug  of  starting  automobiles  could  be  heard  discordantly 
above  the  murmur  of  voices  bidding  a  good-night,  one  to  the 
other. 

In  front  of  him  Bruce  espied  the  massive  frame  of  Fiske, 
and  just  behind  and  a  little  to  one  side  of  her  father,  he 
caught  the  shimmer  of  his  daughter's  golden  head — a  little 
more  golden  by  contrast  with  the  white  scarf  thrown  across 
it  with  studied  carelessness.  Near  her,  dancing  the  last 
round  of  obsequious  attention,  was  the  gentleman  from  Vir 
ginia.  Bruce,  his  mind  busied  with  the  disentangling  of  the 
evening's  varied  impressions,  was  quite  sure  it  was  Georgia's 
voice  that  half  whispered,  half  said  caressingly  to  Ardmore : 
"  You  will  surely  keep  your  promise  and  call  on  Monday." 
Afterwards  Bruce  insisted  that  his  fancy  had  tricked  him 
and  that  the  discomforting  elf  had  whispered  those  words 
in  the  ears  of  his  imagination. 


106 


CHAPTER   VI 

THE   CAVERN    OF   DESPAIR 

THERE  was  a  broad  smile  on  the  weak  face  of  Mr. 
Ardmore  of  Virginia  as  he  passed  down  the  brown- 
stone  stairs  of  Speaker  Fiske's  house  in  Scott  Circle. 
The  smile  grew  broader  and  broader  and  extended  into  a 
grin  when  he  looked  up  at  the  bronze  statues  of  the  Mercu 
ries,  bearing  torches,  stationed  on  the  two  big  round  posts 
at  the  foot  of  the  outside  stairs. 

"  Quite  a  woman ;  a  magnificent  woman ;  by  God,  a 
Venus  and  Minerva  of  a  woman !  "  he  said  to  himself,  stirred 
to  a  flight  of  Websterian  oratory  when  he  passed  the  statue 
of  the  great  Daniel,  eloquently  still  now.  His  enthusiasm 
sought  superlatives  beyond  which  no  man  could  go,  as  he 
walked  in  Sixteenth  Street  toward  the  cozy  White  House. 
Its  high,  stark  Ionic  columns  looked  good-naturedly  from 
their  eminence  down  the  sloping  thoroughfare. 

A  moment  afterwards,  Georgia  Fiske  Ten  Eyck  entered 
her  carriage,  which  had  been  waiting  in  front  of  the  house, 
and  she  drove  past  General  Scott,  seated  uncomfortably  for 
eternity  on  his  bronze  steed,  and  she  whirled  by  way  of  Con 
necticut  Avenue  over  to  Farragut  Square  where  she  intended 
to  call  for  Inez  Hammersmith.  She  was  anxious  that  her 
bays  make  good  time,  for  at  three  she  had  a  sitting  with  a 
portrait  artist  to  whose  studio  Inez  had  promised  to  accom 
pany  her,  and  it  lacked  but  a  few  minutes  of  that  hour  now. 

107 


THE  RADICAL 

At  a  little  after  four  Cupid  had  calendared  for  her  a  tryst 
with  Shaw. 

She  was  somewhat  perplexed  lest  she  find  it  difficult  to 
give  a  plausible  excuse  that  would  rid  her  in  time  of  Inez's 
company  and  let  her  keep  punctually  her  appointment  with 
Sydney.  But  the  shadow  of  a  frown  that  crossed  her  broad 
forehead  gave  way  before  her  enthralling  smile,  just  as 
everything  in  the  world  outside  of  her  gave  way  before  it, 
and  she  doubted  not  at  all  that  she  would  be  able  to  accom 
plish  these  inconsiderable  trifles. 

She  leaned  back  in  her  victoria  as  contented  with  life  as 
if  she  were  one  of  the  sunbeams  that  danced  through  the  air 
jubilantly,  doing  its  share  to  make  the  day  perfect.  She  was 
content,  for  she  knew  that  she  had  accomplished  that  which 
would  make  Shaw  inexpressibly  happy.  She  pictured  his 
broad  smile  and  she  hung  amorously  on  the  lips  of  it.  She 
clasped  the  rattlesnake-skin  purse  with  its  intertwining  gold 
G.  F.  T.,  as  if  it  were  his  hand  that  was  to  bid  her  welcome. 
To  its  keeping  she  had  confided  the  Wyckoff  letter,  carefully 
sealed  in  a  small  white  envelope,  that  she  had  cajoled  Ard- 
more,  uncertain  of  himself,  into  giving  her. 

She  smiled  when  she  recalled  the  tactics  that  had  won  the 
victory.  Her  thoughts  concerning  that  vacillating  individ 
ual  were  far  from  lifting  him  and  his  abilities,  as  he  had  her 
and  her  attributes,  into  Olympia  to  rank  with  the  gods. 
"  Folly,"  she  was  thinking,  "  only  comes  to  maturity,  along 
with  the  rest  of  our  faculties,  in  old  age."  Both  he  and  she 
were  just  in  judging  each  other.  Folly  had  fallen  captive 
to  Venus's  flattering  words  and  seductive  smiles,  while  Mi 
nerva  had  cajoled  him  easily  into  surrendering  to  her  the  pre 
cious  document  that  she  wished  to  give  Mars. 

The  occupants  of  conspicuous  turnouts  speculated  con 
cerning  the  nature  of  the  cause  that  wreathed  the  face  of  the 

108 


THE   CAVERN   OF  DESPAIR 

golden  Georgia  in  smiles;  but  curiosity  gave  way  to  ad 
miration  for  the  wonderful  face  so  enwreathed.  She  could — 
so  she  thought  as  she  rode  along  and  felt  the  silent  homage 
of  the  city — bend  Washington  to  her  purposes  quite  as  readily 
as  she  had  bent  the  foolish  Ardmore. 

The  studio  that  stood,  so  to  say,  in  the  crossway  of 
Georgia's  day's  journey  was  located  on  the  first  floor  of  a 
dingy,  rickety,  old-style,  Southern  building  in  Seventeenth 
Street,  just  opposite  the  War,  State,  and  Navy  building.  It 
belonged  to  that  celebrated  artist,  Mr.  Rossiter  Rembrandt 
Dickinson.  And  strange  and  yet  not  so  strange  to  say,  two 
stories  over  his  head  was  the  studio  of  Elaine  McAllister, 
who  had  moved  to  Washington  to  make  her  home  with  Bruce 
a  few  months  after  he  qualified  and  took  his  seat  in  the 
House.  Peter  McAllister,  Bruce's  scientific  brother,  had 
left  Chicago  to  complete  his  studies  of  chemistry  in  the  uni 
versities  of  Europe. 

Between  one  of  the  two  brothers  Elaine  had  to  choose, 
for  she  was  not  of  those  born  for  seclusion,  and  since  Europe 
was  out  of  the  question  she  naturally  cast  her  lot  with  Bruce. 
Her  personal  relationship  with  him  was  closer,  anyway.  It 
was  through  Miss  Madge  Weber,  an  artist  whose  acquaint 
ance  she  had  made  in  her  student  days  in  Chicago,  that  she 
had  been  persuaded  to  take  quarters  in  that  dingy  old  build 
ing  in  which  was  located  the  studio  of  Rossiter  Rembrandt 
Dickinson. 

Elaine  often  passed  the  artist  on  the  way  up  and  down 
the  stairs,  and  the  fat  and  short  man  had  a  provoking  way  of 
standing  in  the  door  frame,  thrusting  his  hands  in  his  trouser 
pockets  and  staring  at  her,  with  mouth  agape  as  she  be 
took  herself  to  her  room.  He  must  have  done  this  in  a  mere 
spirit  of  mischief,  for  certainly  there  was  nothing  in  Elaine's 
sedate  appearance  that  invited  a  flirtation.  Even  before  she 

109 


THE  RADICAL 

was  thirteen  there  was  a  suggestion  of  the  little  old  maid 
about  Elaine,  and  her  face  changed  remarkably  little  as  she 
waxed  toward  maturity.  Her  features  were  small,  sharp 
and  thin,  her  complexion  pale  to  lily  whiteness.  She  had 
strained  her  vision  from  drawing  in  a  bad  light,  and  as  a 
result  she  already  wore  glasses,  which  added  to  her  seriousness 
of  mien ;  but  her  eyes  shone  straight  and  clear  at  you  for  all 
of  that,  having  their  share  of  the  penetrating  sharpness  that 
belonged  at  times  to  Bruce. 

At  first  sight  Rossiter  Rembrandt  Dickinson — his  father 
had  been  an  unsuccessful  dauber  in  oils  before  him,  and  he 
had  given  Rossiter  his  middle  name  as  an  inheritance  and  an 
encouragement  in  art — looked  more  like  a  butcher  than  an 
artist,  but  the  more  you  looked  at  him  the  more  he  looked  like 
what  he  was  and  the  less  like  what  he  wasn't.  His  big, 
square  forehead  jutted  out  over  his  face  likes  eaves,  and  his 
eyebrows  stood  out  prominently  like  two  long  straight  ridges, 
deep  in  the  recesses  of  which  his  big  gray  eyes  were  set. 
His  aspect  struck  one  as  fierce  and  glowering  at  first,  but  as 
one  became  used  to  it,  the  humorous  point  of  view  was  sug 
gested.  Among  a  very  few  people  he  was  known  for  his 
brilliant  portraits,  among  many  more  he  was  famous  for  his 
laziness;  but  his  indolence  was  a  figment  conjured  up  from 
his  appearance,  for  as  a  matter  of  fact  he  toiled  like  a  slave, 
and  his  portraits,  most  of  which  he  detested  as  pot-boilers, 
were  far  indeed  from  resembling  those  of  the  supreme  artist 
from  whom  he  took  his  middle  name,  and  whom  he  wor 
shiped  as  his  patron  saint. 

Rossiter  Rembrandt  Dickinson  called  his  studio  "  The 
Cavern  of  Despair,"  to  keep  the  inquisitive  and  idle  out  of  it, 
as  he  explained.  And  yet  the  cavern  was  the  favorite  resort 
of  the  do-nothings  and  the  good-for-nothings  for  whom 
Washington  is  the  Mecca,  and  those  who  had  come  to  the 

HO 


THE   CAVERN  OF  DESPAIR 

capital  in  quest  of  jobs  and  found  none,  those  who  had  had 
jobs  and  lost  them,  those  who  had  outgrown  their  political 
usefulness  in  the  various  departments,  those  who  eked  out  a 
precarious  living  by  peddling  reminiscences  of  the  old  days  to 
the  Sunday  editions  of  the  Washington  papers — one  and  all 
of  them  lounged  in  his  studio  by  day,  smoking  his  pipes, 
drinking  his  beer  and  borrowing  his  money,  and  they  slept 
in  his  chairs  and  his  lounges  at  night,  in  return  for  all  of 
which  they  flattered  his  pictures  outrageously,  and  in  con 
sideration  for  all  of  that  he  lent  the  reprobates  more  of  his 
money  and  gave  them  more  of  his  tobacco,  glad  to  have  their 
admiration  but  not  caring  a  straw  for  their  ignorant  judg 
ments.  Calling  his  studio  the  Cavern  of  Despair  to  keep 
the  idlers  away  was  much  like  painting  the  sign,  "  I  am  out  " 
on  his  doors  and  leaving  them  wide  open. 

Amid  this  jetsam  and  flotsam,  these  wrecks  on  life's  fickle 
ocean,  there  were  some  men  who  had  done  great  things  in 
their  day,  who  had  organized  departments  and  introduced 
changes,  and  installed  inventions  for  which  men  higher  up 
had  seized  all  the  credit  and  reaped  the  renown;  there  was 
"  old  "  Glostereek,  waxen  as  death  from  indulgence  in  opium, 
whose  improvements  in  the  railway  postal  service  had  left 
him  but  that  one  heavy,  faded  pepper-and-salt  suit  which  he 
wore  summer  and  winter;  and  there  was — but  let  us  return 
to  our  mutton. 

"  Oh,  they  have  to  go  somewhere,  you  can't  chase  them 
out  in  the  street  like  dogs;  I'm  an  artist,  I  ain't  a  politi 
cian,"  was  the  way  Rossiter  met  the  expostulations  of  his  more 
aristocratic  friends  anent  the  havoc  these  intruders  wrought 
in  his  studio  and  his  purse. 

It  was  in  the  nature  of  a  great  surprise  to  Elaine  when 
Dickinson  called  one  night  at  their  apartment  in  Iowa  Circle, 
armed  with  a  letter  of  introduction  from  a  mutual  friend  in 

III 


THE   RADICAL 

Paris.  He  grunted  out  something  about  having  intended 
to  visit  her  long  ago,  but  being  altogether  too  busy  to  do  it, 
and  he  started  right  in,  without  provocation  or  preamble,  to 
tell  her  she  had  selected  the  very  worst  place  in  all  the  world 
for  the  practice  of  her  profession.  No  one  thought  of  buying 
pictures  or  art  work  in  Washington.  New  York  was  the 
place ! 

There  was  that  in  his  oracular  and  superior  manner 
which  rasped  Elaine,  and  she  dropped  her  usual  expression 
of  quiet,  listening  intelligence  and  asked  with  all  the  sarcasm 
of  which  she  was  capable  when  nettled,  if  he  wasn't  hiding 
his  light  under  a  bushel  by  remaining  in  a  capital  where  gen 
ius  found  so  little  appreciation.  Her  annoyance  seemed  to 
amuse  the  fat  short  artist;  when  animated,  despite  her  old- 
maidish  appearance,  he  thought  her  attractive.  He  grinned 
broadly,  showing  his  tobacco-stained  teeth.  "  I  never  could 
sell  out  and  get  money  enough  to  leave,"  he  explained.  "  I 
dropped  in  here  some  years  ago  by  accident,  and  I've  hung 
on  out  of  inertia.  I  started  with  a  dream  that  Washington 
was  bound  to  become  the  mirror  of  our  national  life,  the 
center  of  our  American  art,  and  I  wanted  to  do  my  share 
toward  helping  the  movement  along.  I  dreamed  then — " 
a  light  flashed  in  his  dull  sleepy  eyes  and  he  waved  his  short 
arm  and  lapsed  into  silence. 

Bruce,  who  happened  to  be  present  in  the  parlor  at  the 
time,  listened  to  the  ruffled  conversation  and  chuckled  to 
himself.  The  fellow  was  evidently  a  rare  bird,  a  character 
in  short,  in  whom  he  would  delight,  promising  every  kind 
of  amusement  to  one  who  kept  one's  eyes  open  for  the  humor 
ous  in  a  sickly  and  serious  world.  He  told  a  story  to  smooth 
over  the  brewing  difference  between  his  sensitive  sister  and 
her  odd  caller. 

Rossiter  Rembrandt  Dickinson  listened  with  a  scowl  on 

112 


THE   CAVERN  OF  DESPAIR 

his  face,  his  ridge  of  brow  projecting  angrily.  "  One  of 
those  rascally  politicians,"  he  muttered  to  himself.  "  I  know 
the  type.  He  can't  catch  me  with  his  cheap  clap-trap.  Not 
much !  "  He  wriggled  uncomfortably  in  his  chair,  and 
showed  visibly  enough  that  he  did  not  feel  at  home.  A  few 
minutes  thereafter  he  took  his  departure,  leaving  on  Elaine 
a  decidedly  bad  impression,  which  her  brother  refused  to 
share.  "  Dickinson  is  an  honest  fellow,"  he  said  simply, 
"  and  I  rather  like  him." 

There  was  another  shock  of  surprise  in  store  for  Elaine 
when,  a  morning  or  two  after  the  night  of  that  visit,  Rossiter 
Rembrandt  Dickinson  walked  into  her  studio,  without  going 
to  the  formality  of  announcing  himself  by  a  knock  on  the 
door.  "I  just  popped  in  to  see  what  you  were  doing  and 
how  you  were  getting  along,"  he  remarked. 

Elaine  was  doing  a  lithe  nymph,  bending  over  a  pool  of 
clay  to  pluck  a  water  lily  from  its  depths;  she  was  proud  of 
both  its  grace  and  its  beauty,  and  she  hoped  that  these  qual 
ities  would  win  the  praises  of  her  uninvited  visitor.  But 
he  merely  grinned,  showing  his  long  yellow  teeth,  stained 
with  tobacco,  and  throwing  out  his  long  ridges  of  eyebrow. 

"  I  hope  you  like  it,"  she  said  finally,  exasperated  by 
his  patronizing  grin  and  the  set,  fierce  expression  that  fol 
lowed  it. 

"  I  hope  I  do,"  he  remarked,  waddling  around  her  table 
to  get  another  view.  "  How  long  have  you  been  working 
at  that  sort  of  confectionery  in  clay  ?  " 

"  It  isn't  meant  to  eat,"  she  replied,  her  white  cheeks 
reddening,  the  features  of  her  quaint,  old-maidish  face  sharp 
ening,  her  eyes  gleaming  through  her  glasses.  She  was  pre 
paring  to  lose  her  temper. 

"  It's  too  bad,"  he  grunted ;  "  model  the  next  one  out  of 
chocolate  creams,"  and  out  he  waddled,  with  his  froglike 


THE  RADICAL 

movement,  not  waiting  for  a  retort  in  kind,  and  indeed  Elaine 
was  too  stunned  to  find  one. 

"  Your  friend  Dickinson  is  just  a  brute  and  a  boor,"  said 
Elaine  to  Madge  Weber,  who  chanced  to  come  just  as  the 
fat  artist  went  out.  Madge  was  but  a  wisp  of  a  girl  with 
miniature  features,  black  eyes,  and  blue-black  hair.  "  You 
would  have  to  look  twice  to  find  her  if  her  hair  wasn't  so 
black,  and  her  eyes  djdn't  shine  and  dance  so  and  give  her 
away,"  is  what  Rossiter  Rembrandt  Dickinson  said  of  her, 
adding  usually:  "  She  ought  to  be  out  on  a  ranch  getting 
a  dash  of  red  on  her  .cheeks  instead  of  smearing  carmine 
on  china  roses." 

"  Oh,"  laughed  Madge,  when  Elaine  detailed  the  artist's 
conversation,  "  that's  really  mild  for  R.  R.  It's  just  his  way. 
You  mustn't  take  what  he  says  so  seriously.  Nobody  else 
does.  He  really  doesn't  mean  anything  by  it,  and  he's  the 
best-hearted  fellow  in  all  the  world  when  you  get  to  know 
him."  She  stood  on  tiptoe  to  twine  a  sympathetic  arm 
around  Elaine's  waist. 

"  I  haven't  the  least  desire  in  the  world  to  cultivate  his 
acquaintance  further,"  spoke  up  Elaine  tartly. 

Madge  laughed;  one  expected  that  her  loud  peal  would 
carry  her  diminutive  body  away,  much  as  a  toy  torpedo  dis 
appears  after  the  explosion.  "  Oh,  Elaine,  you  begin  by  hat 
ing  him,  like  the  rest  of  us,  and  you  will  end  like  the  rest 
of  us  by  falling  in  love  with  him.  I  have  been  in  love  with 
him  twice.  It  gives  one  a  certain  standing  in  art  circles 
here  to  have  fallen  in  love  with  R.  R.  It  certifies  that  one 
has  passed  out  of  the  amateur  into  the  professional  stage." 

When  Madge  left  her  studio  at  noon  to  run  over  to  the 
Tea  Cup  Inn  for  a  hasty  luncheon,  she  met  Rossiter  Rem 
brandt  Dickinson  emerging  from  his  studio  like  a  great, 
shaggy  bear  pushing  out  of  its  den. 

114 


THE   CAVERN   OF  DESPAIR 

"  You  shocked  our  friend  upstairs  dreadfully  this  morn 
ing,"  said  she.  "  You  always  talk  to  new  arrivals,  R.  R., 
as  if  Minerva  had  appointed  you  to  serve  in  place  of  the  nine 
muses  to  say  who  should  enter  the  temple  of  art,  and  who 
should  not  enter  it." 

"  I  could  save  the  goddess  many  a  headache  and  heart 
ache  if  she  had,"  frowned  the  self-appointed  divinity,  disap 
pearing  from  Madge's  side,  where  he  had  been  shambling 
along  in  his  clumsy  way,  and  dropping  into  a  saloon  in 
Eighteenth  Street  for  his  noonday  sandwich  and  his  high- 
ball.  Fifteen  minutes  was  the  time  he  gave  himself  in  theory 
for  this  refection,  but  he  usually  dawdled  over  it  for  an  hour ; 
for  the  German  saloonkeeper  had  a  trick  spaniel  that  amused 
the  artist  immensely,  and  every  other  noon  at  least,  Captain 
Jack  Munger  of  the  6th  Cavalry  and  Lieutenant  Glenn  Dob- 
son  of  the  Navy,  came  over  from  the  Lemon  building  around 
the  corner,  and  from  the  Navy  building  across  the  street 
to  have  a  turn  at  billiards  or  pool.  They  were  as  odd  a  trio 
as  a  whimsical  and  tricksy  fortune  ever  tied  together  with 
a  cord  of  friendship.  "  I  like  them,"  R.  R.  said,  "  because 
they  don't  talk  about  art ;  they  are  men  of  the  great  world ; 
they  know  what  is  going  on  outside  of  dingy  studio  walls, 
and  when  Rossiter  Rembrandt  Dickinson  leaves  his  brushes 
and  palette  he  wants  to  forget  his  worries  and  his  cares." 
And  the  first  word  of  greeting  from  Captain  Jack  or  Lieu 
tenant  Glenn  usually  was:  "  Rose,  old  man,  that  was  a  great 
portrait  you  painted  of  Kinkaid;  I'm  no  judge  of  art  myself, 
but  my  friends  are,  and  I'll  back  their  opinions  any  day  when 
it  comes  to  pictures,"  and  R.  R.'s  brows  would  jut  forth 
fiercely  in  his  endeavor  to  look  modest.  And  then  Captain 
Jack  would  add:  "Yes  sir;  your  portraits  are  masterpieces. 
I'm  proud  to  know  such  a  great  artist.  I  don't  pretend  to 
know  much  about  colors  or  perspectives  and  values  and  all 


THE   RADICAL 

that  sort  of  rot ;  but  I  can  recognize  a  likeness  when  I  see  one. 
Well,  let's  have  another  highball  and  a  game  of  pool.  Here's 
to  you,  R.  R.  I'll  give  you  five  years — no,  damn  me,  one — 
to  be  on  top  of  the  heap." 

And  so  it  went,  week  in,  week  out ;  at  five  minutes  after 
twelve  on  the  day  of  which  we  speak,  R.  R.  Dickinson  was 
feeding  bits  of  bread  and  cheese  to  Gartenlaube's  spaniel, 
to  earn  which  the  bitch  had  to  stand  on  her  hind  legs,  bark, 
and  perform  all  manner  of  tricks  for  the  artist's  amusement. 
Captain  Jack  Munger  in  fatigue  dress  walked  over  to  R.  R.'s 
table,  and  not  three  minutes  afterwards  Lieutenant  Glenn 
Dodson  made  his  appearance  in  civilian  dress. 

"What's  the  matter  with  you,  Jack?"  asked  Glenn, 
fingering  Munger's  shoulder  straps.  "  What  does  this 
mean?  " 

"  The  order  went  out  yesterday,"  complained  Jack,  "  to 
come  to  the  office  in  fatigue  dress.  Since  old  General 
Ostrander  was  married  it's  his  young  wife  that  runs  the  de 
partment  and  not  he.  She  likes  the  old  cock  in  his  uniform 
best,  and  she  insists  that  he  be  dressed  to  kill — in  more  senses 
than  one — and  so  the  order  is  passed  along  to  report  for 
office  duty  in  fatigues." 

"  It's  picturesque,"  said  R.  R.     "  I  like  variety." 

"  It's  un-American  and  uncomfortable,"  complained  Jack. 

Lieutenant  Glenn  Dodson  threw  back  his  head  and 
roared.  He  was  a  tall,  square-shouldered,  deep-chested  fel 
low,  while  Captain  Jack  was  small,  light  of  weight  and 
lithe,  with  a  surprisingly  weak,  feminine  voice,  his  mascu 
linity  duly  considered.  "  Ha !  "  snorted  R.  R.,  his  face  fierce, 
his  clenched  fist  rattling  down  on  the  table,  "  I  have  a  little 
suggestion  for  the  quartermaster  general  or  whoever  his  wor 
ship  may  be."  He  sketched  hastily  with  his  pencil  a  row  of 
soldiers  in  a  fantastic  Zouave  costume,  a  stout  hook  projecting 

116 


THE   CAVERN   OF  DESPAIR 

from  a  square  plate,  sewed  to  the  seat  of  each  of  those  war 
rior's  trousers.  The  Captain  and  the  Lieutenant  bent  over 
his  paper,  wondering  what  odd  freak  had  seized  the  man  now. 

"  That's  the  most  practical  uniform  that  ever  was,"  ex 
plained  the  artist  enthusiastically ;  "  each  soldier  can  carry 
two  days'  rations  and  his  other  effects  on  that  hook  and  not 
feel  any  inconvenience.  No  tents  are  needed.  Why?" 
(sketching  rapidly  as  he  spoke)  "because  they  hang  them 
selves  in  a  row,  side  by  side,  to  the  first  fence  with  their  hooks 
and  so  fall  asleep.  The  hook  is  as  useful  in  battle  as  on  the 
march.  You  tie  a  strong  rope  "  (making  a  third  sketch)  "  to 
the  hook,  put  the  ends  of  the  ropes  in  the  hands  of  the  com 
manding  officer,  and  if  his  men  advance  too  quickly  he  re 
strains  them ;  if  they  are  wounded  he  pulls  them  back.  Now  if 
you  want  an  elegant  satire,  you  draw  your  newly  married, 
henpecked  General  Ostrander  so — the  hook  in  the  same  place 
— and  you  put  that  rope  in  his  wife's  hands  (there  she  is!)  to 
show  how  she  has  him  in  control." 

R.  R.'s  sketches  set  the  table  in  a  roar.  "  I  guess  for 
the  sake  of  my  job  I'll  not  send  it  in;  but  wouldn't  I  like 
to,  though!"  said  Captain  Jack,  regaining  his  composure. 


CHAPTER    VII 

THE   DISTURBANCE 

AT  one  o'clock  of  the  same  day  when  Georgia  called  for 
Inez  to  drive  over  to  the  studio  of  Rossiter  Rem 
brandt  Dickinson,  the  artist  shambled  back  from  the 
restaurant,  put  on  his  paint-besmeared  jacket,  and  began  to 
toil  like  mad  over  his  huge  canvas  of  "  The  Man  of  the 
Mills  " — the  fourth  in  a  series  of  ten  subjects  that  he  had 
chosen  to  illustrate  American  life  and  labor.  His  liking  went 
to  huge  canvases,  brilliant  colors  and  fierce  action,  and  this 
particular  picture  was  the  joy  of  his  heart,  the  glory  of  his 
eyes,  and  as  he  laid  on  the  broad  and  generous  colors  of  his 
able  palette,  discarding  his  brush  for  his  knife  at  times,  he 
talked  to  the  central  figures  as  if  they  had  been  children  of 
his  flesh  and  blood  instead  of  his  fancy.  "  Hi,  you,  liven  up ! 
Push  that  rod,  that's  what  you've  got  muscles  and  a  back  for. 
We  won't  have  any  idlers  in  this  mill !  "  and  so  he  went  on 
scolding  and  praising  his  laborers,  drawn  with  the  grace  and 
firmness  of  a  master  hand,  but  praising  less  than  he  scolded, 
for  our  artist  was  seemingly  a  stern  employer. 

Little  Miss  Madge  Weber  burst  into  his  studio  and 
watched  him  in  quiet  for  a  while,  listening  without  comment 
to  his  growls  and  his  complaints,  marveling  in  silence  at  his 
sure  technic,  his  refined  workmanship,  at  the  speed  with 
which  the  knowing  brushes  of  this  clumsy,  awkward  man 
moved.  "  Why,  you  can  never  get  that  immense  thing  out 
of  the  room,  R.  R.,"  she  remarked  laughingly. 

118 


THE   DISTURBANCE 

"  Eh !  what's  that  ?  "  he  asked,  looking  down  at  her  from 
his  ladder.  "  You  get  me  a  purchaser  and  I  will  get  it  out 
fast  enough.  I'll  tear  down  the  front  of  this  building;  I'll 
pull  it  through  the  roof." 

"  Why,  that  isn't  the  kind  of  thing  people  buy,  R.  R. ! 
Why  don't  you  paint  a  picture  of  Diana  at  the  chase,  or  Or 
pheus  at  the  harp — that's  what  takes?  " 

"  Takes !  takes !  You  can't  serve  the  Almighty  and  the 
almighty  dollar,  woman!  What  do  I  care  what  takes! 
That's  not  my  purpose  on  earth!  Enough  milksops  have 
put  Orpheus  to  twanging  his  harp — no  wonder  he  flew  to 
Hades  for  refuge.  And  Diana  has  been  hunted  enough; 
let  her  rest!  I  know  what  I'm  about.  Rossiter  Rembrandt 
Dickinson  wants  to  paint  contemporary  life ;  I  don't  steal  my 
inspirations  from  Greece.  I  work  like  a  slave  for  'em  here, 
and  now.  Takes!  takes!  why  don't  you  take  yourself  up 
stairs?  Why  do  you  bother  me  to  take —  Hi!  hi!"  He 
interrupted  himself  with  a  yell,  almost  losing  his  balance 
on  the  ladder  and  dropping  his  brushes  and  palette  as  he 
waved  his  short  arms. 

Little  Miss  Weber  shook  her  black  head  and  with  a  laugh 
that  wavered  between  mirth  and  fright,  she  ran  upstairs  to 
her  vases  and  her  roses.  She  never  could  stand  R.  R.  for 
more  than  a  few  minutes  at  a  time;  his  brusqueness  and  his 
violence  frightened  her  timid,  retiring  nature;  he  was  too 
much  like  his  own  canvases,  overpowering,  huge,  domineer 
ing,  and  the  gentle  Madge  preferred  the  more* subdued  and 
less  assertive  character,  who  would  in  turn  have  a  preference 
for  dainty  Dianas  and  melodious  Orpheuses. 

R.  R.  bent  over  laboriously  to  pick  up  his  brushes  and  set 
his  palette  to  rights,  apparently  spending  enough  energy  on 
the  task  to  pull  out  a  Corinthian  pillar  from  the  Capitol. 
"  Women,"  he  maundered  contemptuously,  "  women!  They 

119 


THE   RADICAL 

always  throw  me  out  of  tune.  I  can't  do  anything  when 
they  are  around.  I  hate  'em!  I  detest  'em!  If  I  wasn't 
such  a  soft-hearted  fool  I'd  order  them  out  before  they  got 
in  here."  He  climbed  up  on  his  ladder  again  breathing 
heavily,  as  if  he  were  carrying  a  man  of  his  own  weight  on 
his  shoulders ;  still  fulminating  against  the  sex  that  the  inno 
cent  Miss  Weber  had  represented  so  unfortunately. 

At  three  o'clock  the  knocker  on  his  door — a  treasure  that 
the  artist  had  unearthed  in  Georgetown — was  given  several 
smart  raps.  Absorbed  in  his  work  he  did  not  hear.  The 
rapping  was  repeated.  "  Come  in,"  he  bawled,  "  man,  wom 
an  or  child,  Christian  or  politician,  come  in !  I'm  not  a  serv 
ant  or  a  butler ;  I  have  something  else  to  do  besides  opening 
and  shutting  doors.  They  want  an  artist  to  do  all  sorts  of 
menial  tasks  in  this  blamed  country ;  they  don't  show  us  suffi 
cient  respect."  He  ended  his  short  essay  on  "  Artists  Open 
ing  Doors,"  and  sprawling  down  from  his  ladder,  looked 
out  of  the  window  and  saw  Georgia  Ten  Eyck  dismount  with 
Miss  Hammersmith  from  Inez's  victoria — Georgia  had  man 
aged  to  dismiss  her  own  turnout — while  the  footman,  who 
had  tried  the  knocker  first,  was  now  assisting  them  to  alight. 

"  Who's  that  other  beauty  that  my  subject  has  caught 
in  her  net?  Takes  two  horses,  a  carriage  and  two  men  to 
haul  one  woman  around  nowadays,"  he  grumbled.  "  I  for 
got  all  about  the  golden  girl's  appointment.  My  God,  how 
the  time  flies!  How  precious  it  is!  There  ought  to  be  a 
law  making  it  a  crime  to  waste  a  minute.  I  always  have 
to  stop — I  never  knew  it  to  fail — when  I  am  most  interested 
in  my  series.  Well,  a  man  has  to  live !  " 

The  only  change  in  the  demeanor  of  the  artist  when  those 
two  representatives  of  fashion  entered  his  studio  was  a  more 
rigid  projection  of  his  eyebrows.  He  paid  homage  to  great 
souls.  He  blurted  out  an  incoherent  phrase  about  being 

120 


THE  DISTURBANCE 

overworked — a  standing  cause  of  complaint  with  him — and 
he  shuffled  over  to  the  dais  to  fix  a  chair  in  place  for  Georgia 
Fiske  Ten  Eyck. 

Georgia  drew  back  intuitively  from  R.  R.'s  savage  coun 
tenance  as  he  arranged  a  fold  of  her  drapery,  and  she  half 
wished  that  she  had  gorxe  elsewhere  to  an  artist  more  polished 
and  a  studio  less  musty,  although  her  portrait  would  have 
had  to  pay  for  the  increase  in  her  personal  comfort.  Inez 
sat  silently  in  a  farther  corner  of  the  big  room,  thoroughly 
enjoying  the  new  experience  and  odd  surroundings.  Rossi- 
ter  Rembrandt  bent  over  the  oval  canvas  of  the  ivory  and 
gold  portrait  of  his  sitter,  applying  his  quick,  telling  stroke 
to  it.  "Bah!"  he  maundered  to  himself,  "the  daughter 
of  one  of  these  politicians!  He's  visited  the  sins  of  his  trade 
on  her !  Maybe  I  can't  see  her  diplomacy  peeping  'through 
her  skin.  That  face  of  hers  can't  hide  it  from  me,  not  much ! 
I  suppose  if  I  put  her  true  self  on  canvas  she  wouldn't  take 
the  portrait.  And  she's  masculine  too.  There's  something 
mannish  about  her.  I  don't  know  just  where,  but  it's  there. 
She's  too  powerful,  too  strong-minded  for  a  woman.  I'll  bet 
she  likes  to  run  things!  She  strikes  me  as  beautiful  at  first 
every  time  she  comes  in  here,  and  then  her  masculinity  gets 
some  subtle  hold  on  me.  That  other  beauty  who  came  in 
here  is  the  better  woman  of  the  two,  colder  but  more  femi 
nine,  and  more  honest  and  sincere.  They're  curious  crea 
tures,  women,  but  they  don't  fool  me." 

Thus  he  went  on  for  half  an  hour,  painting  and  talk 
ing  to  himself,  when  another  rap  resounded  on  the  door. 
"  Come  in !  the  tongue  of  my  knocker  must  be  feminine  gen 
der,  it's  always  wagging,"  he  shouted.  Amid  the  laughter 
of  Inez  and  Georgia  evoked  by  R.  R.'s  peculiar  invocation, 
Elaine  McAllister  stepped  into  the  studio.  Towering  above 
her  on  the  threshold  the  lank  form  of  Bruce  stood  hesitatingly. 

9  121 


THE   RADICAL 

He  had  called  to  take  his  sister  for  a  walk  and  he  had  in 
sisted,  ridiculing  her  protests,  on  stopping  to  see  the  eccentric 
artist. 

"  Come  right  in,  Mr.  McAllister,"  called  Inez  encourag 
ingly,  witnessing  his  hesitation. 

"  Whose  studio  is  this,  anyway,  hers  or  mine?"  said  to 
himself  the  disgruntled  R.  R.  bowing  to  his  visitors  coldly, 
and  then  when  Bruce  brushed  past  him  to  extend  his  hand 
to  Inez  he  added:  "That's  the  way  with  these  politicians; 
they  have  no  more  manners  than  buffaloes."  He  turned 
bluntly  and  rudely  to  stare  at  Inez  and  Bruce.  The  well- 
bred  Georgia,  from  her  coign  of  vantage  on  the  dais,  wrestled 
with  a  broad  smile  and  seeking,  in  obedience  to  the  law  of 
habit,  to  hide  it  behind  her  handkerchief,  she  drew  that  article 
from  her  long  purse  in  a  half  conscious  sort  of  way.  A 
letter,  sealed  in  a  small  white  envelope,  fluttered  to  the  floor, 
clinging  fearfully  to  the  side  of  the  dais.  A  noisy  movement 
of  the  artist's  easel  saved  the  truant  document  from  detection. 

"  There's  some  kind  of  a  love  affair  going  on  over  there," 
grumbled  the  artist  to  himself,  his  observant  glances  includ 
ing  Bruce  and  Inez.  "  He's  a  politician — she'll  get  the 
worst  of  it."' 

Elaine,  exchanging  a  few  formal  words  with  the  women 
to  whom  she  had  just  been  introduced,  drew  bashfully  to  one 
side.  She  occupied  herself  with  admiring  a  hand-carved 
Spanish  writing  desk  that  the  artist  had  picked  up  in  his 
student  days  abroad. 

"  Well,  has  your  nymph  fallen  into  the  pond  yet  or  is  she 
still  pulling  at  the  lily?" 

"  She's  better  engaged — she's  eating  chocolate  creams." 
She  congratulated  herself  on  the  promptness  of  the  retort 
— they  usually  came  after  the  occasion  for  their  use  was 
long  by. 

122 


THE  DISTURBANCE 

"Miss  Hoity-Toity !  "  he  muttered  to  himself;  then  he 
grinned.  Sarcasm  troubled  his  heart  no  more  than  paint 
stains  did  his  fingers. 

Art  meanwhile  absorbed  the  conversation  of  Bruce  and 
Inez.  Here,  too,  he  had  a  cultivated  point  of  view.  Art 
in  the  new  democracy  was  a  subject  at  which  he  was  aiming 
his  shafts.  She  lured  his  arrows  to  aim  at  a  mark  that  was 
of  a  less  remote  personal  interest  to  her.  "  Did  Mr.  Ard- 
more  keep  his  promise  and  give  you  the  letter?"  she  asked. 

"  No,  but  he  has  given  me  his  word  of  honor  that  I 
am  to  have  it  Tuesday  in  the  committee  room." 

Georgia  overhearing  the  question  and  its  answer,  under 
the  impulse  of  the  moment,  turned  her  face  fully  around, 
gazed  at  Inez  with  an  expression  that  belonged  half  to  sur 
prise,  half  to  inquiry,  then  blushed  and  bent  her  gaze  on  the 
annoyed  artist.  Bruce  and  Inez  tried  in  the  quiet  of  their 
own  minds  to  unriddle  the  meaning  of  the  odd,  intense  glance 
that  shot  across  Georgia's  large  face. 

"  It  will  come  out  all  right,"  he  said  finally,  lowering 
his  voice  unconsciously. 

"  I  hope  it  may,"  she  answered,  her  voice  attuning  its 
pitch  to  his. 

The  golden  Georgia,  straining  her  nerves  to  overhear 
without  seeming  to  do  so,  wondered  at  the  nature  of  the  re 
lationship  that  might  exist  between  Bruce  and  Inez,  won 
dered  still  more  what  sort  of  conspiracy  those  low  tones 
betokened. 

Again  he  chose  art  in  a  democracy  for  his  theme,  and 
he  was  launched  in  the  midst  of  it  when  Georgia  Ten  Eyck 
left  her  throne — it  struck  Elaine  that  her  movements  were 
those  of  a  queen  abdicating — and  she  joined  Inez  and  Bruce. 
Her  comment  on  the  lateness  of  the  hour  put  an  abrupt  end 
to  Bruce's  reiterated  arguments.  It  was  on  the  way  out  to 

123 


THE  RADICAL 

their  carriage  that  Inez  remarked  to  Georgia:  "  I  think  that 
Bruce  McAllister  has  improved  ever  so  much  since  first  we 
met  in  Chicago." 

"  He  must  have  needed  it,  Heaven  knows,"  returned  the 
golden  Georgia,  with  an  assumed  indifference.  "  I  never 
could  make  up  my  mind  quite  if  he  was  a  man  or  a  jumping- 
jack." 

Inez  felt  the  warm  blood  heat  her  cheeks  and  into  her 
soft  underlip  her  sharp  white  teeth  sank.  She  once  had  passed 
light  remarks  of  a  like  nature  about  Bruce  to  Addison  but  she 
resented  them  bitterly  coming  from  another. 

The  subtle  Georgia,  watching  Inez  narrowly,  guessed 
even  more  than  the  heart  of  Inez  would  have  revealed  to  her 
self.  "  I  have  your  secret,  my  dear  young  lady,"  she  thought, 
feeling  as  if  her  hands  by  clasping  another  guiding  rein  had 
added  to  her  power. 

Inside  the  studio,  meanwhile,  Elaine  covertly  had  sig 
naled  to  her  brother  that  the  time  for  their  departure  had 
come  long  ago,  but  he  would  pay  no  more  attention  to  her 
signs  and  her  hints  than  to  the  gruff  replies  to  his  questions 
that  came  from  the  inhospitable,  disagreeable  R.  R.,  who  re 
fused  absolutely  to  be  drawn  into  a  conversation.  Bruce 
tried  a  story  that  he  revamped  to  fit  an  artist  instead  of  a 
carpenter,  but  Rossiter  Rembrandt  took  the  point  of  it  with 
a  stolidity  creditable  to  a  Chinaman,  and  he  was  proof  against 
Bruce's  repeated  declaration  that  "  The  Man  of  the  Mills" 
was  just  exactly  the  kind  of  picture  he  liked. 

Elaine  finally  dragged  Bruce  off  much  to  R.  R.'s  relief, 
who  grunted  something  about  calling  again — an  invitation 
that  came  rather  from  the  bottom  of  his  throat  than  the  same 
place  in  his  heart. 

"  Now  I  can  work  again,"  said  R.  R.  with  a  sigh  of  relief 
banging  the  door  of  his  studio  shut.  "  No,  I  can't  either; 

124 


THE   DISTURBANCE 

the  light's  gone.  It's  a  shame !  Politicians,  society  and  art 
ist  women  all  in  one  afternoon!  Singly  they're  enough  to 
make  a  man  want  to  tear  his  hair  out  by  the  roots,  but  to 
gether — what  did  I  do  to  deserve  this?  " 

He  waddled  off  to  the  sink,  hidden  by  a  curtain,  to  clean 
his  brushes  and  put  his  palette  away  for  the  day.  He  was 
removing  a  delicate  bit  of  fabric  from  the  chair  on  the  dais 
when  his  foot  brushed  against  the  lower  edge  of  it  and  swept 
Ardmore's  much-sought  epistle  into  the  middle  of  the  floor 
near  the  spot  where  Bruce  and  Inez  had  held  their  disquisi 
tion.  The  noise  made  by  the  disturbed  paper  attracted  his 
attention,  but  he  dismissed  it  as  altogether  unworthy  of 
stooping  to  investigate. 

A  moment  later  when  he  was  donning  his  hat  and  coat, 
he  noticed  the  missive  and  picked  it  up.  Its  white  envelope 
showed  no  superscription  to  his  inquiring  glances.  "It  was 
dropped  by  that  Hammersmith  woman  "  was  his  careless  and 
quick  conclusion.  "  I'll  mail  it  to  her.  Just  '  Washing 
ton  '  will  do,  I  suppose,"  he  soliloquized,  addressing  the 
envelope  on  the  opened  leaf  of  the  Spanish  writing  desk. 

A  knock  called  him;  he  arose  grumbling,  blotting  the 
envelope  with  a  violent  slap  of  his  outspread  hand.  The 
charwoman  sought  admission  to  his  cavern.  He  chatted  with 
her  for  a  while,  and  his  rough  and  ready  gallantry  might  have 
surprised  his  more  fashionable  patrons.  Afterwards,  forget 
ful  of  the  letter  and  all  his  other  studio  cares,  including  his 
rent  for  it,  he  strolled  out  for  his  daily  exercise. 

He  waddled  past  the  War,  State  and  Navy  building, 
which  he  greeted  with  his  usual  remark:  "An  absurd  old 
pile ;  looks  as  if  it  were  put  together  by  children  out  of  their 
toy  blocks.  Romanesque  is  it?  Nonsensesque  I  call  it."  He 
grinned  at  his  own  attempted  witticism  and  stumbled  along 
toward  the  White  House,  where  he  paused  to  admire  the 

125 


THE    RADICAL 

grounds  and  the  front,  as  was  his  wont.  "  Wouldn't  I  like 
to  live  in  there,  though,  with  a  room  facing  the  Potomac  for 
my  studio?  But,  pshaw!  What  chance  has  an  artist  got 
against  a  lot  of  pot-bellied  politicians!  They've  turned  it 
into  a  Black  House,  that's  what  they've  done !  " 

He  went  by  the  noble  Ionic  portico  of  the  Treasury  build 
ing,  which  it  may  please  you  to  know  is  what  his  majesty 
R.  R.  "  considered  architecture,"  and  then  he  drew  his  walk 
to  a  halt  for  a  moment  to  watch  the  steady  stream  of  clerks 
pouring  out  of  the  offices  on  their  way  homeward.  "  The 
dupes  of  politic's  loaded  dice  "  was  his  unfavorable  comment 
on  these.  He  waddled  southward  toward  the  river,  his  eyes 
fell  on  the  Washington  Monument  and  his  soul  was  lost  in 
reverence  and  admiration.  "  Hi !  hi !  "  was  his  salutation. 
"  The  old  boy  is  amethyst  to-day,  poking  his  nose  way  up  in 
the  clouds.  The  mountains  can't  beat  you  for  sublimity !  I 
doff  my  hat  to  you.  I  don't  see  how  the  American  people 
were  satisfied  with  anything  as  grandly  simple  and  as  beauti 
fully  plain  as  you." 

He  strolled  on  to  the  shore  of  the  Potomac,  then  retraced 
his  steps  through  the  Mall  and  toward  the  Capitol.  At  five 
he  limped  wearily  across  Fifteenth  Street  to  a  long  row  of 
decrepit  Southern  houses  in  I  Street,  facing  Franklin  Square; 
in  one  of  these  he  roomed  with  "  Doc  "  Scollard,  a  clerk  in 
the  Treasury  Department,  and  his  family.  After  dinner  Scol 
lard  and  he  played  whist  from  eight  to  ten  precisely ;  then  he 
betook  himself  to  his  bare  room  (an  etched  portrait  of  Rem 
brandt  Van  Rijn  was  its  sole  adornment — valued  by  R.  R.  as 
the  apple  of  his  eye),  lit  his  lamp  and  read,  for  heaven  knows 
how  many  times,  the  correspondence  in  which  the  genius  and 
the  spirit  of  Balzac  revealed  themselves  to  Mme.  Hanska. 
It  was  a  sight  to  see  him  read,  to  watch  him  bring  his  fist 
down  on  some  passage  that  excited  his  warmest  approbation 

126 


THE  DISTURBANCE 

and  hear  him  say  in  a  low,  reverent  voice,  "  Hi,  there  was  a 
hero  for  you !  " 

And  so  passed  R.  R.'s  day  and  night;  and  so  he  spent. day 
after  day  and  night  after  night — a  simple,  honest,  lonely  life, 
true  to  his  art  as  the  muse  herself  could  wish,  whose  innocent 
pleasures  cost  no  man  pain  and  no  woman  grief. 

His  lamp  is  out;  peace  and  sweet  dreams  to  thee,  R.  R. 


127 


CHAPTER    VIII 

R.   R.'S   DISDAIN    FOR   POLITICIANS   INCREASES 

WHEN  Georgia  Fiske  Ten  Eyck  opened  her  heavily 
monogramed  purse  in  the  presence  of  Shaw  to  draw 
from  it  the  Ardmore  letter  and  found  that  precious 
document  missing,  she  questioned  her  senses.  A  second 
search,  fortified  though  her  feminine  soul  was  by  a  touch  of 
the  masculine,  brought  her  to  the  very  verge  of  tears.  She 
quarreled  then  with  the  deities  whom  she  always  had  trusted 
as  the  beneficent  guardians  of  her  destiny.  It  is  likely  to  be 
so  with  fair  women,  spoiled  by  an  admiring  world,  prone  to 
find  fault  with  what  lies  beyond  them  rather  than  with  them 
selves. 

Sydney  P.  Shaw  almost  forgot  himself  and  lost  his  temper. 
He  would  have  thought  naught  of  it  had  Georgia  failed  in 
her  mission,  but  the  fact  that  she  had  achieved  what  no  man 
could  have  done  and  then  thrown  to  carelessness  the  fruits 
of  her  labor,  vexed  him.  But  his  usual  policy  came  to  the 
rescue  and  bade  him  be  suave;  his  was  the  horrible  gift  of 
being  angry  when  and  with  whom  he  chose. 

"  I  am  sure  you  will  find  it,"  he  said  in  cheering  tones, 
dear  to  the  heart  of  woman.  "  Undoubtedly  you  will  find 
it.  You  surely  dropped  it  in  that  artist's  studio  and  I  am 
positive  he  will  keep  it  against  your  coming.  It's  a  pretty 
base  sort  of  a  fellow  you  know,  anyway,  that  will  trifle  with 
a  letter.  The  trouble  is,  my  dear  Georgia,  that  the  impor- 

128 


R.   R.'s  DISDAIN   FOR   POLITICIANS 

tance  of  the  letter  naturally  makes  you  nervous  and  more  fear 
ful  that  it  has  been  lost  beyond  recovery  than  the  facts  will 
warrant." 

"  I  hope  so,"  replied  the  golden  Georgia,  her  large  face 
lighting  up.  "  I  shall  go  to  Mr.  Dickinson's  studio  the  first 
thing  in  the  morning  to  inquire." 

"  Fortune  will  refuse  you  nothing.  You  will  find  it, 
never  fear,"  he  returned  trying  to  silence  his  own  worriment 
by  his  own  good  cheer,  as  one  might  whistle  to  keep  up  one's 
courage.  Torrentwise  he  poured  out  his  praise  for  the  clev 
erness  she  had  displayed  in  capturing  the  brief. 

She  leaped  responsive  to  his  homage  and  as  if  beseeching 
more  of  it  she  said :  "  I  believe,  Sydney,  there  is  something 
going  on  between  Bruce  McAllister  and  Inez  Hammer 
smith." 

"What  makes  you  think  so?" 

She  detailed  what  she  had  seen  and  heard  in  the  studio. 

Astonishment  gave  vent  to  an  exclamatory  "  Hm!  " 

"  I  twitted  her  afterwards  on  McAllister's  ungainliness, 
and  although  she  said  nothing  I  could  see  that  she  resented 
it  deeply." 

"  I  suspected  something,"  he  commented,  unwilling  to 
acknowledge  that  his  superior  masculine  observation  had  been 
at  fault;  "  but  I  had  no  idea  the  affair  had  advanced  so  far. 
I  knew,  of  course,  that  McAllister  was  willing,  but  I  thought 
the  Hammersmith  girl  aimed  higher." 

Georgia  expatiated  at  length  on  taste,  adding  nothing  to 
the  theory  that  the  trite  Latin  apothegm  does  not  cover. 

"  And  you  say  that  McAllister's  artist  sister  has  a  studio 
on  the  floor  above  this  fellow's?  " 

She  affirmed  her  assertion ;  he  looked  as  if  he  were  more 
gravely  concerned  about  the  lost  letter  than  he  had  been  will 
ing  to  confess.  It  was  she  who  brought  consolation  this 

129 


THE   RADICAL 

time.  It  would  be  the  part  of  wisdom  to  spare  their  tears 
and  not  consider  the  missive  lost  until  her  visit  to  the  artist 
failed  to  recover  it. 

In  the  morning  she  was  in  -R.  R.  Dickinson's  studio  not 
so  very  long  after  he  had  opened  it.  He  mumbled  his  aston 
ishment  at  seeing  her  and  growled  forth  something  or  other 
about  being  interrupted.  She  expressed  a  consuming  interest 
in  the  portrait;  he  remained  impassive,  reflecting.  Then  she 
remarked  in  quite  a  matter-of-fact  way: 

"  I  happened  to  drop  a  letter  yesterday — not  one  of  any 
particular  importance — and  I  wondered  if  I  could  have  been 
careless  enough  to  have  let  it  fall  here." 

"  Ah,"  he  thought  to  himself,  "  that's  what  she  wants ! 
It  wasn't  in  her  nature  to  come  out  straight  and  direct.  The 
daughter  of  a  politician !  "  and  aloud  he  said  curtly :  "  Yes, 
I  found  a  letter.  I  thought  it  belonged  to  Miss  Hammer 
smith  and  I  mailed  it  to  her  last  night."  His  absent-minded 
ness  saw  the  thing  done  that  this  very  absent-mindedness  had 
failed  to  do.  "  It  must  be  there  by  this  time."  He  fastened 
a  longing  eye  on  "  The  Man  of  the  Mills  "  to  show  his 
interest  was  there  and  that  the  interview  was  over.  She 
blushed  for  this  crude  fellow  and  bowed  her  way  out.  When 
she  passed  down  the  four  stone  steps  that  led  to  the  sidewalk, 
she  heard  his  studio  door  slam  ominously  and  she  laughed 
aloud,  finding  something  humorous  in  his  exaggerated  rude 
ness. 

"  Supposing,"  she  reflected,  as  she  walked  quickly  and 
gracefully  in  Seventeenth  Street  toward  Farragut  Square, 
"  that  Inez  has  already  received  and  read  the  letter — what 
then?  "  She  found  no  answer  to  the  question  she  put  herself, 
and  she  resolved  to  let  circumstances  solve  the  difficulty. 

She  discussed  with  Inez,  her  arm  twined  around  her 
waist,  everything  in  Washington  but  the  purpose  that  had 

130 


R.   R.'s   DISDAIN  FOR   POLITICIANS 

brought  her  thither;  finally  she  introduced  it  with  a  "  by  the 
way."  To  Inez,  however,  the  letter  that  R.  R.  failed  to 
mail  had  not  come.  Georgia,  her  heart  fluttering,  suggested 
that  a  mistake  might  have  been  made.  A  query  among  the 
servants,  a  close  inspection  of  the  mail-bag  proved  none. 
Georgia's  conversation  circled,  moving  away  from  the  letter 
only  to  return  to  it  again  before  she  had  finished.  Inez, 
divining  her  method,  wondered  at  her  persistency  and  she  de 
cided  that  the  missive  was  of  importance. 

"  Artists,"  remarked  Georgia  finally  when  she  was  about 
to  depart,  "  are  notoriously  careless.  He  may  have  misad 
dressed  it.  Supposing,  if  it  happens  to  be  on  your  way,  that 
we  stop  at  the  post  office  to  inquire?  " 

Inez,  her  curiosity  on  edge,  consented  readily.  As  a  mat 
ter  of  course  the  post  office  was  obliged  to  plead  ignorance 
of  the  letter  that  never  had  left  R.  R.'s  studio.  Georgia, 
dismissing  the  subject  as  one  of  no  consequence,  left  the 
aroused  Inez  to  visit  the  artist  again.  His  beclouded  face 
and  his  brow,  jutting  angrily,  showed  his  displeasure  at  the 
repeated  interruption. 

"  I'm  not  the  post  office!  "  he  growled  when  she  had  ex 
cused  her  reappearance,  "  nor  am  I  responsible  for  their 
errors."  She  praised  "  The  Man  of  the  Mills,"  its  colorful- 
ness,  its  action,  its  realism  before  she  went  on  to  say: 

"  We  are  all  liable  to  mistakes,  won't  you  look  again  ?  " 

"  Thinks  I  don't  see  through  her  flattery,"  he  said  to  him 
self ;  and  aloud:  "  Look!  Where  in  Heaven's  name  shall  I 
look?  I  tell  you  that,  as  sure  as  my  name  is  Rossiter  Rem 
brandt  Dickinson,  I  addressed  the  letter  to  Miss  Hammer 
smith  on  that  Spanish  writing  desk,  and  then  I  walked  around 
the  corner  and  dropped  it  in  the  mail  box."  By  some  peculiar 
illusion  of  the  memory  and  the  senses  he  actually  saw  him 
self  taking  the  various  steps  6f  the  process. 


THE  RADICAL 

Georgia  held  her  ground  gently,  trying  to  appease  him 
by  the  logic  that  since  to  err  egregiously  was  human  he  need 
consider  it  no  sin  in  his  particular  case  to  have  sent  a  trifle 
amiss.  The  answer  he  roared  out  frightened  her. 

"Don't  you  think  that  I  know  that,  madam?  It's  no 
news  to  me!  But  I  tell  you  I  sent  the  letter,  and  I  know 
what  I'm  talking  about.  Look  here,  see  and  satisfy  yourself, 
since  you  won't  take  my  word  for  it." 

He  flung  the  leaf  of  the  writing  desk  down  with  a  thump, 
disclosing  its  many-compartmented  interior.  An  excited 
rummaging  of  its  contents  failed  to  discover  the  letter. 
Georgia  departed,  scattering  behind  her  profuse  apology  at 
the  disturbance,  to  which  came  his  grinning  rejoinder  that 
he  had  told  her  it  would  be  worse  than  futile.  He  heaved 
a  sigh  of  relief,  forgetting  the  letter  quite  as  thoroughly  as  if 
he  had  never  heard  of  it  and  he  surrendered  himself  to  "  The 
Man  of  the  Mills."  Georgia  returned  home  disconsolate. 

At  noon  Shaw  telephoned  to  her  from  the  Capitol.  Her 
guarded  response  alarmed  him,  but  finding  her  so  distraught 
he  made  light  of  her  fears  and  tried  to  calm  her.  He  re 
flected  afterwards,  seeking  to  find  for  his  ruffled  nerves  the 
consolation  they  needed,  women  were  poor  manipulators  and 
the  probabilities  were  that  she  had  not  gone  about  her  search 
in  a  practical  manner.  There  was,  he  felt  sure,  a  fair  chance 
left  that  the  letter  was  in  the  studio  still.  If  that  letter  was 
in  Bruce's  pocket — and  it  might  as  well  be  there  as  anywhere 
else — McAllister  carried  with  him  the  warrant  for  his 
enemy's  political  death.  Sydney  again  paid  his  respects  to 
the  carelessness  of  women,  and  he  consulted  with  his  faithful 
man  Ommaney,  resolving  to  send  him  to  the  artist's  studio 
since  it  might  be  hazardous  to  be  seen  there  himself. 

The  crafty  and  resourceful  Ommaney  knocked  at  R.  R.'s 
door  at  two  o'clock.  This  last  interruption  made  the  artist 

132 


R.  R.'s  DISDAIN  FOR   POLITICIANS 

fearful  for  the  life  of  his  inspiration,  and  the  voice  that  bade 
Ommaney  to  enter  was  an  indistinguishable  growl.  To  the 
shaggy  person,  the  beetling  brows,  the  glowering  eyes,  the 
statesman  introduced  himself  as  Right  Honorable  Richard 
Ommaney,  M.  C.,  Chairman  of  the  Committee  of  the  Jud 
iciary,  etc.,  etc.  R.  R.  was  quite  as  overwhelmed  as  if  he  had 
said,  "  I'm  Richard  Ommaney,  street-sweep  for  their  triune 
majesties  the  Commissioners  of  the  District  of  Columbia." 

"  Well,  what  do  you  want?  "  he  asked  fretfully,  his  eyes 
longingly  traveling  toward  "  The  Man  of  the  Mills."  Then 
he  glanced  at  Ommaney  piercingly  and  felt  still  less  inclined 
toward  that  gentleman's  small,  furtive  face,  his  freckled 
countenance  and  sandy  hair.  "  Another  of  these  cheap  poli 
ticians,"  he  grumbled  to  himself. 

"  I  have  been  recommended  to  you  by  my  friends  as  one 
of  the  best  portrait  painters  in  Washington,  and  since  I  hap 
pened  to  pass  by  here  to-day,  I  thought  I  would  inquire  about 
terms." 

"  I'm  very  busy  just  now,"  he  said,  his  brow  smoothing 
slightly,  "  and  I  can't  give  you  a  sitting  for  some  time." 

"  Oh,  I  can  wait,"  said  the  obliging  Ommaney  as  he 
dropped  down  upon  R.  R.'s  lounge. 

"  Very  well,"  replied  the  artist,  hoping  the  hint  would 
dislodge  his  unwelcome  visitor.  "  I'll  let  you  know  by 
letter." 

"  And  the  terms?  "     Ommaney  stayed  where  he  was. 

R.  R.  had  his  price  and  mentioning  it  he  turned  his  steps 
toward  his  ladder.  Ommaney  arose — R.  R.  hoped  to  go — 
but  he  remained  to  praise. 

"  That's  a  wonderful  picture  you  have  there,"  said  Om 
maney,  standing  off  to  admire  it  critically,  "just  the  sort  that 
appeals  to  me."  He  lapsed  into  a  reflective  quiet  and  then 
said  in  a  sharp  businesslike  tone,  "  What  do  you  want  for  it?  " 

133 


THE  RADICAL 

Dickinson  grinned.  Madge  Weber's  prophetic,  "  You'll 
never  sell  that,  R.  R.,"  flashed  through  his  egoistic  mind. 
The  picture  was  not  even  done,  the  paint  was  not  dry  on  the 
canvas  and  here  was  gold  in  advance  of  fame  to  recompense 
merit!  There  was  such  a  thing  as  being  too  hasty  in  one's 
judgment  of  people,  and  while  a  man  might  sink  to  politics, 
still  in  the  hidden  resources  of  his  soul  he  might  nourish  a 
love  for  art  as  lofty  as  anybody's.  Waxing  eloquent,  he  des 
canted  on  the  merits  of  the  canvas.  Ommaney  admired  his 
enthusiasm,  estimating  its  dynamic  value  in  politics,  and  he 
turned  a  deaf  ear  to  the  laudatory  criticisms  that  the  artist 
passed  on  his  own  work. 

"  But  the  price?  "  asked  Ommaney,  as  if  its  merits  were 
so  patent  even  to  the  layman  that  it  remained  only  for  the 
price  to  settle  the  bargain. 

"  A  thousand  dollars,"  said  the  jubilant  R.  R.,  but  so 
hesitatingly  that  the  least  alert  of  men  could  have  seen  that 
he  would  have  been  willing  to  have  split  terms  with  his  own 
rash  exorbitance. 

"  I  don't  see  any  good  reason  why  we  shouldn't  come  to 
an  agreement,"  said  Ommaney.  He  lured  R.  R.  on,  talking 
about  other  artists  and  art  in  general,  passing  lightly  and 
logically  to  ask  if  women  were  more  difficult  to  paint  and 
portray  than  men.  Dickinson  delivered  himself  to  a  sympa 
thetic  listener  at  length.  The  sympathetic  one  agreed  with 
him  and  ran  on  from  women  in  art  to  mere  woman.  He 
had  observed  in  his  time  that  the  lighter-minded  sex  was  apt 
to  be  more  careless  than  man.  There  was  something  peculiar 
about  that! 

The  artist  nodded.  He  wondered  at  what  his  munifi 
cent  visitor  was  driving,  but  he  interposed  no  argument 
in  defense  of  the  carefulness  of  the  fair  sex.  Much  he 
cared,  ran  his  own  separate  conclusion,  whether  they  were 

134 


R.   R/s   DISDAIN   FOR   POLITICIANS 

careful  as  misers  or  careless  as  prodigals.  Cautiously,  in 
directly,  building  around  the  hint  whole  walls  of  "  ifs," 
"  buts "  and  "  fors,"  Ommaney  threaded  the  maze  and 
finally  reached  the  end  and  aim  of  his  verbose  excursion, 
the  letter. 

The  ridge  on  R.  R.'s  brow  jutted  ominously ;  a  faint  sus 
picion  illumined  him,  throwing  light  over  the  real  purpose 
of  this  visitor.  He  was  naturally  mistrustful  of  politicians, 
hating  them  with  all  his  heart  and  all  his  soul,  and  the 
shadow  of  a  doubt  needed  but  to  cross  his  mind  before  he 
filled  in  its  baleful  outlines  with  substance.  Watchful,  alert, 
controlling  himself  with  no  end  of  inward  effort,  he  let  the 
man  talk  on  at  length  while  he  awaited  his  opportunity  to 
swoop  down  on  him  and  take  his  vengeance  for  time  lost  and 
hopes  deferred. 

Ommaney  drew  back  from  the  subject  merely  that  he 
might  gain  more  purchase  and  clutch  it  the  firmer  when  his 
conversational  antennae  reached  toward  it  again.  He  inter 
rupted  himself  to  say:  "  I  should  think  it  would  be  mighty 
attractive  for  a  fellow  of  your  artistic  temperament  to  be  in 
Venice.  A  consulship,  I  should  think,  if  you  tried  for  it, 
might  not  be  very  difficult  to  secure." 

"  Go  to  Venice !  "  bellowed  the  exasperated  R.  R.,  un 
willing  to  endure  the  ordeal  longer.  "  What  do  I  want  to 
do  in  Venice?  There  are  enough  things  to  paint  here! 
Go  to  Venice?  You  politicians  don't  need  to  come  here  to 
bribe  me!  If  I  had  that  damn  letter  I'd  say  so!  What  the 
deuce  can  I  do  with  it?  I  don't  wish  any  more  of  my  pre 
cious  time  wasted  on  that  nonsense.  My  time  is  my  own; 
I  don't  steal  it  from  the  people  who  pay  me.  You  needn't 
visit  here  and  trick  me  into  believing  that  you  want  your 
portrait  painted  and  that  you  intend  to  buy  my  picture 
and " 

135 


THE   RADICAL 

"  My  dear  sir,  I  assure  you — "  In  vain  Ommaney  tried 
to  stop  the  raging  torrent  of  abuse. 

"  Don't  assure  me !  Please  leave !  This  is  a  studio  built 
for  devotion  to  art,  not  for  politics." 

Ommaney  bowed  his  head  to  let  the  storm  blow  over  it. 
He  feared  to  leave  the  vociferous  artist  in  his  present  state 
of  mind,  knowing  not  what  gossip  and  what  ultimate  result 
might  be  born  of  it.  He  drew  nearer  him  to  put  a  pacifica 
tory  hand  on  his  shoulder.  R.  R.  pulled  it  down  in  less  time 
than  Ommaney  had  lifted  it  up,  and  he  roared  out  at  the  top 
of  his  lungs,  his  face  matching  the  carmine  of  his  palette  as  he 
opened  the  studio  door : 

"Go  to  the  Capitol !  That's  the  place  the  Government 
keeps  for  your  like !  I  pay  rent  and  I  earn  it  honestly !  Join 
your  buccaneering  comrades  up  at  the  Capitol,  but  you  keep 
out  of  here." 

Obedience  seemed  to  Ommaney  the  only  part  left  of  valor 
and  he  deserted  the  field  muttering  under  his  breath  dreadful 
imprecations  against  the  artistic  temperament  and  the  crazy 
genius  possessed  by  it.  He  sought  out  Shaw  to  acquaint  him 
with  the  failure  of  his  mission,  and  Shaw,  despite  the  fact 
that  his  fix  was  desperate,  laughed  uproariously  at  Omma- 
ney's  adventure  in  the  Cavern  of  Despair,  and  Ommaney, 
whose  sense  of  humor  was  only  submerged  in  anger,  rescued 
that  choice  possession  and  joined  in  with  him.  Then  they 
exposed  to  discussion  all  sides  of  the  issue  and  prepared  a 
plan  of  action  that  would  keep  abreast  of  all  the  predica 
ments  that  arose.  To  search  for  the  letter  longer,  they 
agreed,  was  useless.  Accident  had  taken  it;  accident  alone 
could  return. 

During  one  of  those  same  beautiful  twenty-four  hours 
Georgia  Fiske  Ten  Eyck,  in  her  overanxiety  to  find  the  letter, 
gave  the  enemy  a  clue  to  its  loss  and  sent  them  posthaste 

136 


R.   R.'s  DISDAIN  FOR   POLITICIANS 

in  search  of  the  treasure-trove.  Circumstances  dovetailed 
nicely  with  the  untoward  fortune  of  the  last  few  days;  the 
dinner  to  be  given  at  her  home  that  very  night  helped  her  to 
take  the  false  step  easily.  Among  the  social  luminaries  of 
the  first  magnitude  the  guests  numbered  Count  Villari,  the 
Polish  minister,  his  daughter  Anna  Villari,  and  Secretary 
and  Mrs.  Scarborough,  and  Secretary  and  Mrs.  Kinkaid. 
We  forbear  mentioning  those  of  a  radiance  too  minor  to  em 
blazon  their  own  names,  and  we  conclude  the  list  by  saying 
that  Edward  Donovan  Butler  borrowed  from  rather  than 
lent  light  to  this  mundane  constellation.  He  felt  himself 
more  invited  than  included. 

In  Washington,  where  a  social  position  depends  more 
upon  what  you  were  before  you  came  to  the  capital  than 
what  you  did  to  get  there  or  what  you  have  done  since  your 
arrival,  there  must  have  been  an  unusual  reason  to  explain 
the  correspondent's  presence  in  the  home  of  the  rigidly  exclu 
sive  Fiskes  other  than  may  appear  on  the  surface.  Georgia 
maneuvered  it.  The  press  was  a  source  of  presidential 
booms  and  the  correspondents  made  them  before  they  were 
launched.  She  was  quick  to  learn,  her  resourceful  fingers 
searching  for  power  in  the  Press  gallery  quite  as  thoroughly 
as  they  did  in  either  of  the  two  houses  of  Congress,  that  little 
Butler  was  a  man  to  be  reckoned  with  in  the  newspaper 
world  of  the  great  Middle  West.  With  him  for  captain 
she  hoped  her  cohorts  might  seize  that  section.  She  counted 
the  East  as  her  father's  tributary  and  she  feared  that  if  the 
Middle  West  were  lost,  her  arch  would  tumble  for  the  lack 
of  a  keystone. 

The  chipper  correspondent  was  not  adverse  to  allowing 

the  Speaker's  daughter  to  take  her  place  in  the  complicated 

mechanism  he  had  built  up  for  the  gathering  of  news,  and  he 

accepted  the  invitation  more  curious  than  suspicious  of  the 

10  137 


THE   RADICAL 

motive  that  lay  behind  it.  In  Washington  everybody  wants 
something  from  everybody  else  and  eternal  vigilance  is  the 
watchword  of  the  successful  and  the  ambitious. 

It  occurred  to  Georgia  at  the  dinner  table,  as  her  clear 
eyes  fastened  on  the  correspondent's  sloping  face,  that  he  in 
his  full  knowledge  of  current  events  and  gossip  might  have 
possibly  an  inkling  of  the  whereabouts  of  the  lost  letter.  She 
knew  that  he  was  a  close  friend  of  Bruce's  and  she  was  not 
above  the  suspicion  that  the  artist,  influenced  by  the  insid 
ious  force  of  propinquity,  had  entrusted  that  precious  bit  of 
paper  to  Elaine.  Once  in  the  hands  of  Elaine  it  would  pass 
on  of  course  to  Bruce  and  there  complete  the  vicious  circle. 

Later  in  the  evening  when  Butler  was  attempting  a  con 
versation  with  the  Polish  minister's  monocle — the  one  re 
sponsive  feature  of  that  gentleman's  stony  countenance — the 
subtle  Georgia  spirited  him  away  to  a  Turkish  corner  in 
one  of  the  smaller  rooms  that  opened  on  the  parlor.  Pasha- 
like  he  was  sunk  in  a  sybaritic  heap  of  pillows.  Overhead, 
between  the  folds  of  the  heavy  rug,  woven  in  interminable 
Persian  scroll,  the  bejeweled  lamps  twinkled  mellowly.  The 
pronounced  colors  of  the  room  blended  with  a  lulling  effect, 
all  of  its  furnishings  being  too  assertive  to  allow  prominence 
to  any  one  feature. 

Small  talk  occupied  them.  Her  silvery  laughter  paid 
a  flattering  respect  to  his  pointed  reflections.  She  was,  with 
a  sort  of  piscatorial  deliberateness,  allotting  him  due  time 
to  tire  himself  out  before  she  gave  her  hook  the  incisive 
jerk  that  was  to  add  him  to  her  already  heavy  string.  Her 
self-conceit,  of  which  she  had  a  degree  rather  than  a  share, 
paid  her  brilliancy  all  the  homage  it  deserved. 

The  conversation  zigzagged,  slowly  climbing  higher  to 
ward  a  more  serious  level.  When  they  had  scaled  its  top 
most  peak  she  gave  her  own  impressions,  befittingly  colored, 

138 


R.   R.'s  DISDAIN   FOR   POLITICIANS 

of  the  last  squabble  in  the  rooms  of  the  Interstate  Commerce 
Committee  and  she  asked  for  Butler's.  He  responded  ambig 
uously.  She  abandoned  the  theme  temporarily,  merely  to 
play  it  more  insistently  and  louder  later  on.  His  indirec 
tion  piqued  her  boldness  and  she  asked,  even  though  recog 
nizing  the  danger  of  so  doing,  while  she  was  fascinated  by 
it: 

"  Have  you  heard  anything  more  of  the  letter  itself?  " 

"  Why,  I  have  no  doubt  that  McAllister  has  it,"  he  an 
swered,  rubbing  his  eyes  to  conceal  the  expression  that 
wavered  over  them. 

The  sharp  tone  of  anxiety  that  so  suddenly  betrayed  it 
self  in  her  voice,  the  excitement  suppressed  but  sensible  that 
had  crept  into  it  gradually,  the  reiterated  beating  out  of  the 
same  motive  on  the  kettle  drums,  aroused  his  suspicion  and  set 
his  wits  to  work  at  a  rate  wearing  to  the  machinery  of  the 
brain. 

He  intensified  her  eagerness  by  a  subtle  evasion  of  the 
subject,  as  if  the  reason  for  his  avoiding  it  were  that  he  knew 
more  than  he  wished  to  tell  and  therefore  stood  in  fear  of 
what  a  slip  might  lead  him  to  divulge.  She  directed  the  con 
versation  toward  art  and  found  her  modern  instances  of 
illustration  in  the  work  of  R.  R.  Dickinson.  An  artist's 
work  being  a  key  to  his  character,  she  could  not  help  but  won 
der  whether  Mr.  Dickinson  himself  was  as  honest  and  sin 
cere  as  his  work. 

As  she  flashed  through  studio  door  and  window  with  a 
logical  quickness  past  pursuit,  the  inner  voice  that  cried  in 
Butler's  ears,  "  Holy  High  Jinks,  she  had  her  hands  on  the 
letter  and  mislaid  it  in  that  artist's  room !  "  almost  startled 
him  into  jumping  to  his  feet.  However,  his  was  the  part  of 
an  impassive  Pasha,  and  lolling  back  luxuriously  on  the  cush 
ions  he  laid  no  violent  hands  on  the  verisimilitudes. 

139 


CHAPTER   IX 

THE   INTERVENTION    OF   ELAINE 

AT  one  o'clock  that  next  morning  Mr.  Edward  Don 
ovan  Butler  stood  on  the  stoop  of  Speaker  Fiske's 
house  and  gazed  down  on  the  torches  carried  by  the 
flying  Mercuries,  burning  dimly  and  uncertainly  now  as  the 
myriad  stars  in  the  Washington  sky.  He  moved  slowly 
down  the  brownstone  stairs,  entered  the  Circle  and  stood  for 
a  second  irresolute  before  the  low,  long  curving  marble  that 
made  a  background  for  the  Hahnemann  statue.  Then  he 
turned  suddenly  into  Rhode  Island  Avenue.  Now  and  then 
the  click-clack  of  a  horse's  hoofs  on  the  pavement  broke  the 
stillness  in  which  the  houses,  huddled  in  the  dense  darkness, 
seemed  to  sleep. 

Iowa  Circle  was  his  quest.  On  arriving  there  he  was 
lost  amid  the  high  palms  that  turn  the  court  of  the  Stanton 
apartment  building  into  a  tropical  forest.  Stumbling 
through  the  impenetrable  thickness  he  picked  out  his  perilous 
way,  and  a  moment  afterwards  he  had  the  delicious  sensa 
tion  of  soaring  skyward — a  sensation  that  might  have  ap 
proached  ecstasy  if  the  elevator  had  been  running  to  lift  him, 
or  if  the  stairs  had  been  less  difficult  of  ascent.  The  top 
floor  circumscribed  his  pleasure ;  for  here  it  was  that  his  more 
prosaic  labors  of  feeling  his  way  along  the  dark  winding 
hall  began.  A  resolute  pull  at  the  somnolent  bell — he  prayed 

140 


THE  INTERVENTION  OF  ELAINE 

under  his  breath  it  might  be  the  right  one — brought  to  the 
door  Bruce  McAllister,  arrayed  in  a  costume  compounded 
of  articles  half  fit  for  the  day  and  half  fit  for  the  night  and 
altogether  fit  for  neither.  He  peered  through  sleepy  eyes  at 
his  nocturnal  visitor. 

"  It's  I— Ed." 

"  Spare  your  breath,"  yawned  the  hero;  "  I  knew  it  was 
you.  Only  the  mad  arouse  the  sane  at  this  hour." 

He  led  the  enemy  of  sleep  into  the  library  and  lit  the  gas. 
Its  yellow  rays  open  for  us,  as  it  were,  the  heart  of  democ 
racy — its  lair,  if  you  prefer.  A  long,  pine  table,  protesting 
against  being  pressed  into  service  for  a  desk,  groaned  under 
its  weight,  piled  as  for  the  ragman,  of  documents,  reports, 
papers  and  those  other  necessaries  dear  to  the  heart  of  Miner 
va  and  our  overworked  congressmen.  Fat  books,  dull  as 
their  corpulent  appearance  implied,  stretching  out  in  every 
conceivable  position  but  the  proper  one,  occupied  shelves 
that  couldn't  have  been  more  uneven  had  our  hero  been  their 
constructor.  So  undecided  was  the  color  of  the  wall  paper 
that  we  pause  to  consider  whether  or  not  the  room  was  pa 
pered  at  all.  Of  the  floor  we  speak  with  certainty — it  was 
bare.  When  Bruce,  lost  in  thought,  was  out  of  it,  the  room 
itself  was  empty  of  ornament. 

"  Well,  what's  up?  "  asked  our  hero,  the  eagerness  of  his 
swarthy  face  belying  the  indifferent  tone  of  his  voice. 

"  Oh,  nothing,"  replied  Butler  sarcastically,  seeking  stim 
ulus  in  a  fresh  cigar  (democracy,  misled  by  middle-class  ex 
ample,  sought  refuge  in  a  plebeian  pipe)  ;  "I  just  came 
around  at  half  past  one  in  the  morning  for  the  fun  of  waking 
you  up.  I  wanted  to  do  it  so  much  that  I  have  been  sitting 
up  waiting  for  the  hour  to  arrive.  What  the  deuce  do  you 
suppose  is  up  on  the  morning  when  your  committee  is  to 
meet  and  Bruce  McAllister's  fate  is  to  be  decided?  I  sup- 

141 


THE   RADICAL 

pose  you  think  the  President  is  going  to  get  out  of  his  bed 
to  save  your  political  life." 

"  You're  up,  anyway,  to  watch  the  execution,  and  that's 
some  consolation/'  grinned  Bruce. 

"  Oh,  yes ;  I  suppose  as  usual  you  see  me  and  think  every 
thing  is  all  right.  Lean  on  me,  that's  proper,  like  a  child  on 
its  father.  I  don't  doubt  at  all  that  you  have  the  letter." 

"  No,  but  I  presume  you  came  here  at  one  in  the  morning 
to  tell  me  you  have.  Otherwise  you  wouldn't  have  the  heart 
to  awaken  me.  I  knew  the  thing  would  turn  up  in  some 
shape." 

"Faith  is  a  beautiful  thing;  but  if  I  had  any  faith  in 
that  letter  it  would  be  torn  into  about  fifty  sections  by  this 
time.  And  I  want  to  tell  you  that  if  you  don't  put  your  big 
hands  on  it  between  now  and  the  time  the  committee  meets 
I  would  advise  you  to  skip  Washington  and  leave  word  to 
have  your  trunk  follow.  They're  going  to  turn  you  into  a 
national  joke;  the  fellows  that  write  humorous  paragraphs 
for  the  newspapers  will  be  able  to  sleep  an  hour  longer  in  the 
morning  on  account  of  the  easy  copy  you  are  going  to  give 
them." 

"  If  I  make  a  nation's  jokes,  Ed,  I  don't  care  who  makes 

"  It's  a  fine  time  to  wax  humorous!  " 

"  Don't  get  excited,  Ed ;  Ardmore " 

"Who's  excited?" 

"  Ardmore  promised  me,  I  say,  on  his  word  of  honor  that 
he  would  give  me  the  letter  in  the  committee  room  this  morn- 
ing." 

"  Ardmore  promised !  If  Ardmore  saw  the  truth  com 
ing  his  way  he'd  turn  tail  and  holler  murder!  He  hasn't 
got  the  letter  himself." 

"  How  do  you  know?  " 

142 


THE  INTERVENTION  OF  ELAINE 

"  I  never  heard  of  a  witness  being  haled  into  court  to 
answer  questions  at  one-thirty  in  the  morning." 

"  You  have  the  letter,  Ed  ?  "  There  was  hope  in  his 
voice.  His  swarthy  face  lit  up  and  he  twined  his  long  legs 
around  the  chubby  legs  of  the  cane-bottomed  chair  on  which 
he  sat. 

"  If  I  had  it  I  should  be  working  the  telegraph  wires  to 
Chicago,  not  sitting  here.  I  haven't  got  it !  " 

"What  brings  you  here,  then?" 

"  Just  to  warn  you  to  prepare  for  your  approaching 
fate." 

Bruce  breathed  easier,  believing  somehow  that  warning 
had  put  his  doom  to  flight.  Butler  puffed  at  his  cigar  for 
a  second  or  two  in  scowling  silence  and  then  he  added :  "  I 
also  came  to  tell  you  that  Georgia  Fiske  Ten  Eyck  had  that 
letter  and  lost  it." 

Bruce  unhooked  his  long  legs  and  sat  bolt  upright.  The 
gray  faded  out  of  his  eyes  leaving  them  in  full  possession  of 
the  dreamy  blue,  and  through  his  mind  there  rolled  the 
golden  Georgia's  caressing  voice  heard  but  a  few  nights  ago : 
"  You  will  surely  keep  your  promise  and  call  on  Monday, 
Mr.  Ardmore!  "  Undoubtedly  Ardmore  had  kept  his  word 
for  once,  making  the  dangerous  exception  that  proved  the 
undesirable  rule. 

"  What's  the  matter  with  you,  Bruce?  " 

"  Nothing,"  he  answered,  swinging  a  long  leg  over  his 
left  knee. 

"  Well,  you  look  like  a  Chinaman  on  the  moment  of 
discovering  gunpowder."  Unwilling  that  his  thrilling  feat 
in  the  most  rarefied  atmospheres  of  intellectuality  should  go 
unapplauded,  little  Butler  in  a  way  described  it,  telling  how 
he  had  leaped  to  the  startling  conclusion  that  Georgia  Ten 
Eyck  had  had  the  letter  and  lost  it.  Looking  smilingly  at 

143 


THE  RADICAL 

the  bedazzled  Bruce,  who  sat  there  with  mouth  agape,  he 
drew  his  performance  to  a  close  by  a  wild  flight  through  the 
realms  of  space  that  ended  with  the  deduction  that  Georgia 
had  dropped  the  letter  in  the  studio  of  Rossiter  Rembrandt 
Dickinson. 

But  the  seemingly  bedazzled  Bruce  was  lost  in  the  mazes 
of  his  own  dreamy  thoughts  rather  than  admiration  of  the 
correspondent's  intellectual  audacity  and  brilliancy.  He  re 
called  now  the  full  avid  glances,  as  of  a  wild  thing  startled, 
that  Georgia  had  shot  at  him  and  Inez  in  the  studio  but  a 
few  days  since  when  the  letter  claimed  a  few  words  of  their 
conversation. 

"  Strange,"  murmured  Bruce. 

"What's  strange?" 

"  That  she  maneuvered  to  get  that  letter  from  Ardmore 
in  the  first  place  and  that  she  is  so  anxious  to  get  it  back  in 
the  second  place.  There  have  been  rumors,  have  there  not, 
about  Shaw  and  Mrs.  Ten  Eyck?  " 

"  I  told  you  the  other  night,  Bruce,  that  I  had  heard  no 
more  than  the  echo  of  them.  The  story  broke  before  my 
time." 

With  this  thought  for  his  Ariadne-thread  Bruce  wan 
dered  again  into  the  intricate  maze  of  reflection.  Butler 
called  an  end  to  his  excursion  with :  "  There's  not  a  second 
to  be  lost  in  futile  dreaming.  Elaine  knows  this  Dickinson  ?  " 

Bruce  nodded  affirmatively. 

"  Your  committee  meets  at  ten-thirty  and  I'll  meet  you 
in  Elaine's  studio  at  a  few  minutes  after  ten  to  learn  what 
she  has  discovered.  We  can  go  from  the  studio  to  the  Cap 
itol  together.  Meanwhile,  having  a  hard  day's  work  ahead 
of  me  before  night  comes,  I  don't  think  it  would  be  a  bad 
idea  for  me  to  get  a  little  rest." 

Bruce  remained  awake.  He  was  a  light  sleeper  at  the 
144 


THE  INTERVENTION   OF  ELAINE 

best  and  had  an  owl-like  fondness  for  the  darkness  since  it 
seemed  to  serve  him  as  a  sort  of  a  background  to  throw  his 
thoughts  into  sharper  relief.  He  awoke  the  wondering  Elaine 
a  full  hour  before  her  time  and  he  awaited  her  coming  rest 
lessly  at  the  breakfast  table. 

The  dining  room,  lightened  by  Elaine's  artistic  touch, 
was  less  severely  democratic  than  Bruce's  den.  On  the 
border,  between  the  ceiling  and  the  wall,  she  had  painted 
running  garlands  of  petunias,  and  softened  the  straight  formal 
lines  of  the  gray  wall  paper  with  a  woodland  water-color  or 
two.  Her  knowing  eye,  trained  by  poverty  to  recognize 
bargains,  had  picked  out  the  rug,  which  was  more  cheerful 
in  tone  than  fine  in  workmanship — possibly  it  may  be  strain 
ing  a  point  to  say  that  Bruce  would  not  have  noticed  its 
disappearance  from  the  floor.  A  piece  of  silver  or  two,  be 
speaking  the  family's  faithfulness  to  tradition  at  the  expense 
of  hunger  maybe,  decorated  the  oak-stained  sideboard.  A 
canary  bird  sang  in  its  cage,  unheard  by  the  abstracted  Bruce, 
and  several  rows  of  real  geraniums  and  begonias  competed 
with  Elaine's  painted  flowers.  Let  an  impartial  public  award 
the  prize! 

When  Elaine  appeared  her  brother  put  forth  all  his 
powers  to  involve  her  in  the  mysteries  of  politics.  She  stood 
aloof,  uninspired  and  uninterested  by  intrigue  or  cabal.  In 
difference  only  made  its  slow  exit  when  Bruce  finally  con 
fessed  that  in  the  lost  letter  his  future  and  his  cause  were 
involved.  But  when  he  made  the  too  sudden  announcement 
of  the  part  he  wished  her  to  play  in  recovering  that  pro 
digiously  important  document,  indifference  came  stealing  back 
on  the  stage  again.  Her  pointed  nose  lifted  itself  chidingly 
and  her  sharp  eyes  glanced  at  him  scornfully  through  her 
glasses.  Ask  a  favor  of  that  rude,  ill-mannered  man  who 
treated  her  with  either  contempt  or  superciliousness!  She 

145 


THE  RADICAL 

would  rather  die  than  do  it!     Even  to  speak  of  it  angered 
her! 

In  the  old  allegories  Sisterly  Affection,  we  believe,  suffer 
ing  a  rout  or  two  from  the  armies  of  Pride,  Humiliation,  and 
their  like,  was  always  victorious  at  the  crucial  moment ;  and 
even  in  our  own  day  and  generation,  with  an  infrequency 
that  keeps  it  hallowed  and  aloof  from  the  commonplace,  the 
same  miracle  comes  to  pass,  and  teaches  life  to  preach  by 
example  against  our  own  growing  cynicism.  Let  those  still 
skeptical  ones  ponder  on  how  Elaine  McAllister  surrendered 
pride  for  love  and  knocked  at  R.  R.'s  door;  nor  does  the 
timidity  of  Elaine's  knock,  disturbing  the  artist's  morning 
labors,  by  any  means  indicate  the  amount  of  courage  and 
resolution  it  took  thus  to  announce  her  presence.  The  very 
thought  of  it  humiliated  her. 

Circumstances  altered  cases,  Bruce  argued.  He  led  her 
on  gently  and  then  he  laughed  her  fears  down.  She  merely 
mistook  the  artist's  eccentricity  for  rudeness.  He  had  always 
said  that  she  was  a  little  hard  on  him.  He  liked  R.  R.  first- 
rate  himself.  He  was  a  character,  and  characters  all  had  a 
streak  of  the  eccentric  in  them.  She  consented  finally.  The 
hardest  part  of  that  day's  work  for  her  began  with  the  timid 
knock  at  the  artist's  door. 

"  Come  in !  "  he  bawled,  and  then  descrying  his  visitor,  a 
broad  grin  usurped  the  place  of  the  frown  that  wrinkled 
its  way  across  his  jutting  brows.  "Oh,  it's  you,  is  it?  I 
thought  you  would  want  my  help  before  very  long." 

"  I  don't  want  your  help." 

"  Very  well,  then,  what  can  I  do  for  you?  " 

She  stammered  and  turned  red  and  he,  taking  a  cruel 
delight  in  her  embarrassment,  grumbled :  "  I'm  very  busy  ; 
I  hope  you'll  hurry." 

She  gasped;  her  inclination,  if  not  her  feet,  rushed  for 
146 


THE  INTERVENTION  OF   ELAINE 

the  door;  but  she  stood  her  ground  resolutely,  her  courage 
growing  with  what  assailed  it,  and  she  remarked,  "  I  don't 
want  your  help  for  myself." 

"  You  came  for  another,  then,  philanthropic  soul."  He 
laid  long  and  sarcastic  stress  on  each  syllable. 

The  door  tempted  her  again  and,  fearful  of  ignominious 
flight  before  she  even  broached  her  mission,  she  blurted  out: 

"  I  was  told  that — well,  on  Monday  afternoon — yes,  it 
was  on  Monday — on  Monday  afternoon  you  found  a  letter 
here  written  by " 

"What,  that  confounded,  unmentionable  letter  again!" 
He  was  on  his  feet  flapping  his  extended  arms  roosterwise. 
His  pretended  anger  changed  suddenly  into  a  rage  that  swept 
away  even  his  own  pretext  before  it.  "  I  said  three  times  that 
I  mailed  that  accursed  letter.  I  haven't  got  it!  What  do  I 
want  with  it  ?  Go  home  and  tell  your  brother  that  I  haven't 
got  it.  I  mailed  it.  Mailed  it!  Woman,  mailed  it!  I  told 
Mrs.  Ten  Eyck  that  I  didn't  have  it  and  she  had  to  trot  back 
again  to  question  my  word.  And  yesterday  afternoon  a  man 
by  the  name  of  Ommaney,  one  of  those  cheap  politicians,  came 
in  here  and  tried  to  bribe  me  into  saying  I  had  the  letter. 
He  offered  me  a  thousand  dollars  for  '  The  Man  of  the 
Mills/  and  that  not  bringing  the  horrible  letter,  he  offered 
me  a  consulship  in  Venice.  I  haven't  got  the  letter,  I  say! 
Once  and  for  all  I  haven't  got  it!  And  if  I  had  it  I'd  tear 
it  into  shreds!  I  don't  want  to  hear  another  word  about 

it,  I " 

Elaine  fled,  frightened,  as  by  a  threat  of  physical  violence, 
by  the  artist's  mad  aspect  and  his  terrible  whirlwind  of  words. 
"  That's  the  way  it  is  with  these  women,"  he  grumbled ; 
"  you  can't  lift  your  voice  above  a  whisper  but  they  take 
offense.  They  bring  'em  up  in  hothouses  nowadays.  They'll 
preserve  them  in  incubators  next.  I  didn't  want  to  hurt 

147 


THE  RADICAL 

her  though — I'm  sorry  about  ft.  I'll  apologize  when  I  see 
her  again.  But  it  was  her  own  fault  anyway;  hers  or  that 
rascally  politician  of  a  brother." 

Bruce  and  Butler  found  her  just  after  her  unpremeditated 
flight  still  inwardly  aquiver — though  she  said  next  to  noth 
ing  about  it — from  the  indignity  she  had  suffered.  A  few 
minutes  later,  when  they  had  left  for  the  Capitol,  Butler's 
sloping  face  was  black  and  despondent,  but  the  swarthy  Bruce 
was  light  of  face  as  of  heart)  and,  bursting  into  eccentric  and 
unaccountable  fits  of  laughter,  he  predicted  that  all  would 
end  well. 

"  I  suppose,"  said  Butler  angrily,  when  denied  any  solid 
reason  whereon  the  prophecy  was  based,  "  that  you've  had 
another  attack  of  your  superstitions  again.  Saw  the  sun  over 
your  right  shoulder  or  dreamed  about  a  flock  of  sparrows  in 
flight." 

Since  his  citadel  of  prescience  was  pinnacled  with  the  three 
pins  he  had  picked  up  outside  of  Elaine's  studio  door,  Bruce 
believed  it  an  unassailable  sanctuary  for  good  luck,  and  he 
merely  grinned  in  reply. 


148 


CHAPTER   X 

THE   PEA   AND   THE   COCOANUT 

BUT  I  didn't  lose  it.  I  say  this  for  the  hundredth  time ; 
the  letter  never  passed  through  my  fingers.  I  never 
set  my  eyes  on  it,"  insisted  Shaw. 

"I  know,"  said  Anthony;  "but  your  agent  lost  it." 

"  The  same  agent  that  was  capable  and  astute  enough  to 
lay  hold  of  it,"  retorted  Sydney  testily. 

"  He  ought  never  to  have  lost  it." 

"  No,"  returned  Sydney,  his  lips  turning  white  along  the 
edges;  "  and  it  ought  never  to  have  been  written — that's  the 
truth  of  the  matter."  The  words,  in  his  petulance,  slipped 
from  him  unawares  and  he  regretted  them.  Sydney  had  been 
under  a  progressively  higher  tension  all  the  week,  and  he 
looked  pale  and  worn,  and  his  temper  did  what  it  listed  with 
his  worn  nerves. 

Sir  Anthony  sucked  in  his  underlip ;  he  was  not  used  to 
criticism  and  he  chafed  under  it.  Still  he  could  not  help  but 
recognize  the  justice  of  the  reprimand — had  he  not  upbraided 
himself  severely  every  day  since  that  man  McAllister  had 
raised  the  fracas  over  the  letter? — and  he  was  obliged  to 
apologize  for  his  own  conduct  instead  of  devoting  his  atten 
tion  to  criticising  Sydney's.  He  went  into  a  voluble  explana 
tion  of  his  motives  in  penning  the  epistle. 

Sydney's  thoughts  whirled  elsewhere;  time  was  too  pre 
cious  to  waste  it  by  listening  to  Anthony's  explanation  of 

149 


THE   RADICAL 

his  false  step.  The  harm  had  already  been  done  for  one 
thing,  and  Sir  Anthony's  excuses  halted  as  much  from  lame 
ness  and  fatigue  as  on  account  of  their  weak  logic.  Sydney 
eyed  the  ormolu  clock  on  the  mantel  nervously.  In  a  half 
hour  the  committee  that  would  reshape  his  destiny  was  to 
meet;  only  a  few  over  thirty  minutes  could  lift  supplicating 
and  obedient  hands  to  help  him.  How  make  the  best  use  of 
their  assistance  before  they  disappeared  forever  ?  He  mopped 
his  brows,  pacing  the  floor  quickly  and  turning  with  a  short 
nervous  halt. 

"  The  last  moment — and  saved !  "  he  shouted  suddenly, 
wheeling  around  and  hammering  his  fist  into  the  open  palm 
of  his  left  hand.  "I've  got  it !" 

"Got  what?"  asked  Anthony. 

Sydney,  as  if  to  make  his  inspiration  more  substantial  and 
less  elusive,  clothed  it  in  words.  Sir  Anthony  must  have 
found  its  appearance  good,  for  he  laughed  heartily,  looked 
relieved,  and  extended  his  congratulations  to  the  resourceful 
Sydney.  "  You're  shrewd,  Shaw ;  you're  shrewd ;  if  you 
had  devoted  yourself  to  commerce  you  would  have  made 
even  a  richer  man  than  I.  I  would  rather  make  it  a  university 
than  a  hospital  though,  if  you  don't  mind.  I've  given  two 
hospitals  away  and  I  would  like  to  diversify  my  philan 
thropies." 

"  A  university  or  a  hospital,  it's  all  one,"  said  Syd 
ney,  plucking  nervously  at  his  blond  beard,  his  oblique 
eyes  on  the  ormolu  clock ;  "  anything  to  make  McAllister 
ridiculous." 

Sir  Anthony  rubbed  his  hands,  his  cross  eyes  twinkled 
gleefully  and  he  burst  out  into  a  short  cluck  of  a  laugh.  "  I 
don't  see,  though,"  he  said,  "  how  you  are  going  to  connect 
the  thing  with  child  labor." 

"  Don't  you?  "  Shaw  started  to  explain,  but  noticing  the 
150 


THE   PEA  AND  THE   COCOANUT 

time  he  checked  himself  and  remarked  instead :  "  Time  is 
rushing;  you  write  and  I'll  dictate." 

Sir  Anthony  sat  him  down  at  the  writing  desk  and  con 
verted  Sydney's  words,  almost  as  fast  as  they  fell  from  his 
lips,  into  his  precise  handwriting.  When  he  had  done  Shaw 
read  over  the  paper  carefully,  laughed  out  his  complete  sat 
isfaction,  and  thrust  the  missive  into  his  coat  pocket. 

"Let  me  know  at  once  how  it  turns  out?"  requested 
Anthony. 

"  You'll  hear  before  I  can  tell  you.  McAllister  will 
be  the  laughing-stock  of  America." 

They  shook  congratulatory  hands  and  Sydney,  looking 
as  if  a  year  were  falling  from  his  shoulders  with  every  step, 
hastened  toward  the  Capitol,  while  Sir  Anthony  left  the 
hotel  to  attend  to  the  myriad  affairs  that  had  summoned  him 
to  Washington. 

At  the  present  time  Anthony  was  revolving  in  his  mind 
the  possibilities  of  a  scheme  whereby  all  the  trusts  might 
be  emerged  into  one  colossal  trust  of  trusts.  He  had  been 
dubbed  the  father  of  the  trust  long  ago;  he  longed  now  to 
be  known  as  the  mother  of  the  progeny  as  well.  Already 
he  had  reduced  Croesus  to  comparative  poverty;  he  would 
soon  force  his  present  self  to  appear  as  a  wretched  beggar 
on  the  highways,  mendicatory  hat  in  hand,  beside  his  future 
self.  When  one  descends  to  comparisons,  one  may  rob  his 
tory  of  its  legendary  dignity. 

Anthony  Wyckoif's  fortune  had  been  estimated  at  five 
hundred  millions,  which  would  have  contented  most  of  us; 
but  it  is  well  to  remember  that  there  was  a  time  when  a 
millionaire  was  considered  a  Croesus,  and  who  knows  but 
that  at  the  rate  with  which  the  world  moves  a  half  billion 
may  be  considered  but  a  modest  competence  ?  Let  us  not  be 
overhasty  in  expressing  a  limit  to  our  desires  lest  we  chance 


THE  RADICAL 

to  find  ourselves  with  a  paltry  billion  among  a  host  of 
trillionaires. 

Well,  at  any  rate,  Anthony  WyckofFs  trust  of  trusts — 
known  hereinafter  as  the  Universal  Trust — was  to  include 
the  railroad  systems  of  America,  foreign  and  domestic  steam 
ship  companies,  his  own  Cosmopolitan  Oil  Company,  the  iron 
and  steel  industries,  the  coal  business,  the  textile  industries, 
the  national  banks,  the  telegraph  and  cable  lines,  the  tel 
ephones,  the  municipal  gas  and  street-railway  companies,  the 
gold,  the  silver  and  copper  mines,  flour,  sugar,  salt  and  to 
bacco  and  electrical  supplies.  It  is  possible  that  one  or  two 
minor  industries  may  have  been  omitted  in  this  little  list, 
but  suffice  it  to  say  that  what  Anthony  left  out  was  not  at 
all  worth  taking  in.  Industrially  speaking,  the  world  was  to 
be  his  and  the  limited  group  of  lieutenants  that  were  to  serve 
under  him. 

Scientists  tell  us  that  if  a  pea  be  placed  at  the  side  of 
a  cocoanut,  the  relative  size  of  the  sun  and  the  earth  will 
find  their  just  proportions  represented,  and  if  one  takes  our 
United  States  Government,  the  money  it  controls  and  ex 
pends,  the  number  of  people  it  employs,  and  place  it  beside 
Sir  Anthony's  Universal  Trust,  the  same  pea  and  the  same 
cocoanut  will  do  to  show  how  the  one  shrinks  in  importance 
beside  the  other.  Anthony,  then,  would  be  richer  and  more 
powerful  than  the  Government;  he  would  have  a  larger  ma 
jority  of  its  voters  on  his  pay  roll,  and  he  intended  to  have 
the  Government  run  to  suit  himself.  The  milk  in  the  cocoa- 
nut,  to  say  the  same  thing  differently,  was  in  no  way  de 
signed  for  the  fattening  of  the  despicable  little  pea;  but,  on 
the  other  hand,  to  extend  the  figure  of  speech  a  little  further, 
the  cocoanut  had  certain  little  designs  whereby  the  pea  was 
to  serve  its  ends.  The  sun,  huge  as  it  is,  and  the  earth, 
small  as  it  is,  are  of  mutual  benefit  in  our  vast  solar  system, 

152 


THE   PEA  AND  THE   COCOANUT 

and  both  help  to  keep  the  whole  in  motion.  Surely,  if  the 
cocoanut  is  kind  enough  to  keep  its  place  and  distance,  and 
does  not  roll  over  and  crush  the  pea  out  of  existence,  the 
latter  ought  to  show  its  thankfulness  by  sundry  little  deeds 
of  kindness.  The  right  kind  of  tariff,  taxation  and  laws, 
were  all  the  pea  was  asked  to  give  for  the  privilege  of  exist 
ing.  But  why  poke  fun  at  Anthony?  Why  belabor  and 
scold  him?  Was  it  his  fault,  was  he  to  blame,  if  we  pros 
trated  ourselves  and  gave  him  stilts  to  stride  over  us  like 
a  Colossus? 

His  morning's  calling  list  included  a  number  of  senators, 
the  President,  several  members  of  the  Cabinet,  the  Speaker 
of  the  House,  and  one  or  two  congressmen.  We  are  half 
tempted  to  give  the  high-sounding  names  of  those  who  made 
up  the  truly  Homeric  roll,  but  we  crush  it  lest  the  invidious 
distinction  seem  an  effort  to  pluck  the  sting  from  democracy 
and  to  deny  victory  to  liberty.  And,  wherefore,  should  we 
seem  in  this  hard  battle  of  class  interests  to  magnify  the 
insuperable  difficulties  that  lie  in  wait  for  the  people  of 
Bruce? 


11  153 


CHAPTER   XI 

THE    HERO   AS   A   FOOL 

IN  the  committee  room  Bruce  stood  in  the  corner  made 
by  the  projection  of  the  old-fashioned  mantel,  his  arm 
leaning  against  its  yellowed  marbled  edge.  A  fire  sput 
tered  in  the  grate  below,  barely  burning,  as  if,  like  the  mem 
bers  there  assembled,  it  were  saving  its  energies  for  the 
dramatic  moment.  The  minute  hand  of  Bruce's  watch 
summed  up  the  situation  poignantly  and  succinctly;  if  Ard- 
more  crossed  not  the  door  within  five  minutes  it  was  all  up 
with  our  hero.  He  assumed  the  virtue,  which  he  had  not, 
of  being  unconcerned.  The  members  of  the  committee,  who 
were  chatting  together  and  scribbling  at  the  table,  glanc 
ing  surreptitiously  at  Bruce  every  now  and  then,  would 
have  sworn  that  the  letter  was  in  his  pocket.  MacMillan, 
of  California,  bet  Sands,  of  Ohio,  ten  dollars  to  five  that 
Bruce  would  make  good.  The  odds  expressed  the  attitude 
of  the  room. 

There  was  a  step  in  the  corridor  that  set  Bruce's  heart 
to  sounding  louder  than  it  did  the  marble  floor  outside. 
Ardmore  entered  and  catching  Bruce's  confident  glance  as 
the  door  swung  open,  that  gentleman  from  Virginia  dropped 
his  eyes  to  the  floor,  dashing  with  him  there  the  hopes  of  the 
gentleman  from  Illinois.  Recognizing  the  utter  futility  of 
questioning  the  uncertain  one,  Bruce,  with  a  calm,  smiling 
face,  put  himself  in  the  hands  of  inexorable  destiny,  insisting 

154 


THE  HERO  AS  A  FOOL 

that  his  wavering  doubts  put  their  faith  in  the  three  pins. 
Shaw  made  a  telling  entrance  a  second  later  on  a  stage 
already  occupied  by  the  chief  characters  of  the  drama.  He 
smiled  and  bowed  from  right  to  left,  forgetting  not  to  include 
in  his  obeisance  his  archenemy,  which  was  to  be  expected 
from  one  as  magnanimous  and  chivalrous  as  Sydney.  Bruce 
thought,  without  being  sure  of  it,  that  a  reassuring  signal 
passed  between  Sydney  and  his  henchman  Ommaney,  on 
the  lookout. 

Shaw  called  the  meeting  to  order.  Some  eighteen  anxious 
gentlemen  dragged  themselves  through  the  regular  order  of 
business  and  its  attendant  dry-as-dust  routine,  as  an  audience 
endures  the  dullest  of  plays  in  the  hope  that  the  denouement 
may  reward  their  patience  by  putting  boredom,  their  common 
enemy,  to  flight. 

The  room  drew  a  deep  breath.  At  last  the  chairman 
gave  a  signal  that  the  real  action  had  begun. 

"At  the  last  meeting  of  this  committee  the  gentleman 
from  Illinois  charged  undue  influence  was  being  brought  to 
bear  on  certain  members  of  this  committee  in  order  that 
the  McAllister  Anti-Child  Labor  bill  might  not  be  reported 
out. 

"  Specifically,  the  gentleman  from  Illinois  stated  the  gen 
tleman  from  Virginia  had  received  a  letter  from  Anthony 
WyckofT  commanding  him  to  do  his  utmost  to  prevent  the 
said  bill  from  leaving  this  room.  The  chairman  believes  he 
quotes  the  gentleman  from  Illinois  correctly." 

"  Quite  so." 

The  room,  fearful  of  recantation  and  consequent  dis 
appointment,  signified  its  relief.  The  sudden  peal  of  the 
cannel  coal  in  the  grate  made  the  committee  start  back  with 
a  shock;  evidently  its  nervous  organism  had  been  wound  to 
the  highest  pitch  of  expectancy. 

155 


THE  RADICAL 

In  his  turn,  the  white-haired,  white-bearded  Ardmore,  the 
redness  of  his  face  vivid  by  contrast,  arose  to  testify.  He 
acknowledged  that  he  received  a  letter  from  Anthony  Wyck- 
off,  and  freely  admitted  he  read  its  contents  to  the  gentleman 
from  Illinois. 

Our  hero,  swinging  his  leg  along  the  floor,  held  his 
face  Spartanly  impassive,  forbidding  victory  to  fly  its  insignia 
there.  He  was  conscious  only  of  the  removal  of  weights,  of 
a  lighter  heart,  of  blood  circulating  without  strain  or  effort. 
Well  for  him  who  has  his  faith,  even  though  it  rest  on  in 
substantial  pins ! 

"  Has  the  gentleman  from  Virginia  that  letter  now  in  his 
possession  ?  " 

Ardmore,  artistic  soul,  carried  on  the  dialogue  in  panto 
mime,  opening  his  pocket  with  a  grave  and  speaking  hand, 
waving  that  bit  of  stage  property  with  dramatic  ostentation. 
Bruce  took  himself  to  task  for  his  ignorance  of  physiognomy, 
wondering  how,  forgetful  of  the  omens  sent  by  favorable 
gods,  he  could  have  jumped  to  the  erroneous  conclusion  that 
when  Ardmore  entered  the  room  the  letter  came  not  with 
him.  Honesty,  he  thought,  was  put  to  humiliation  by  the 
low  average  given  to  it  in  this  world  by  Shakespeare.  If 
the  misanthropic  learned  of  Ardmore  and  his  noble  resistance 
to  the  influence  brought  to  bear  upon  him,  they  would  be 
made  whole.  Truth  had  moved  it  battalions  on  the  side  of 
righteousness,  and  our  hero,  blithe  of  spirit,  sank  back  in  his 
chair  and  believed  that  his  cause  was  won. 

"  Will  the  gentleman  from  Virginia  read  the  communi 
cation  he  has  received  from  Mr.  Anthony  Wyckoff  to  the 
members  of  this  committee?  " 

"Certainly;"  and  then  the  smooth  voice  of  honesty 
purled  to  a  world  of  skeptics  the  epistle  Sydney  P.  Shaw  dic 
tated  to  Anthony  Wyckoff. 

156 


THE  HERO  AS  A   FOOL 

"  MY  DEAR  MR.  ARDMORE: 

"  Ever  since  my  return  from  Washington  I  have  been 
meaning  to  write  you,  but  the  pressure  of  business  prevented. 
I  wish  to  say  now,  first  of  all,  since  the  opportunity  presents 
itself,  that  I  was  deeply  impressed  by  your  visits  to  me  in 
behalf  of  the  McAllister  Anti-Child  Labor  bill.  It  is  the 
duty  of  all  good  American  citizens,  among  whom  I  hope  I 
may  honestly  account  myself  one,  to  do  all  they  can  to  save 
our  little  children  from  the  hardships  that  even  manhood 
should  be  spared.  Count  on  me  to  do  in  behalf  of  the  bill 
whatever  falls  to  my  small  and  modest  amount  of  influence. 

"  It  seems  to  me  that  the  people  of  our  glorious  country 
ought  to  be  educated  to  a  point  where  they  will  have  a  keener 
sense  of  their  responsibilities  and  duties.  If  the  multitudes 
only  knew,  for  instance,  what  the  child  meant  to  the  State, 
I  have  faith  enough  left  in  my  fellow-man  to  believe  that 
no  second  appeal  would  have  to  be  made  to  him  to  blot  out 
the  curse  of  child  labor. 

"  The  more  I  think  it  over,  the  more  it  forces  itself  home 
to  me  that  there  ought  to  be  founded  at  Washington  a 
national  university  for  the  gathering  and  dissemination  of 
knowledge  of  this  and  an  allied  character  among  our  people. 
If  such  a  university,  I  hold,  were  to  speak  on  the  question 
of  child  labor,  having  the  carefully  collated  facts  at  hand,  it 
would  command  the  attention  and  respect  of  all  our  citizens. 

"  What  better  purpose  can  wealth  serve  than  to  assist 
so  worthy  a  project?  And  where  is  there  a  place  more 
favorable  for  the  founding  of  a  university  of  this  character 
than  in  our  magnificent  capital,  where  the  finest  of  libraries 
and  the  best  equipped  of  scientific  departments  will  lend  their 
valuable  service  to  the  earnest  student  ? 

"  I  have  had  the  idea  in  mind  for  many  years  of  endowing 
such  an  institution,  and  it  seems  to  me  that  there  could  be  no 

157 


THE   RADICAL 

better  time  so  to  do  than  the  present,  which  is  making  such 
hard  demands  on  our  scholars  to  solve  its  problems.  While, 
for  reasons  of  convenience,  I  should  rather  not  have  it  known 
for  some  months  to  come,  I  pledge  myself  now  to  subscribe 
ten  millions  in  Cosmopolitan  Oil  Company  bonds  toward  an 
endowment  fund  to  establish  a  national  university  along 
lines  of  original  research  and  study.  I  can  only  be  grateful 
to  the  Father  of  us  all  that  He  has  permitted  me  to  amass 
the  means  of  assisting  my  fellows  in  a  project  that  will  in 
time  inevitably  assuage  the  sufferings  of  humanity.  While 
I  wish  to  impose  no  restrictions  to  my  gift  at  all,  it  seems  to 
me  now  that  the  money  ought  to  be  used  chiefly  in  assisting 
our  poorly  paid  professional  and  scientific  men  in  the  prose 
cution  of  their  studies  along  the  lines  of  their  specialties; 
but,  of  course,  this  may  be  considered  in  the  light  of  a  detail 
which  can  be  decided,  like  many  other  questions,  later  on. 
Assuring  you  of  my  profound  regards,  and  hoping  that  your 
laudable  efforts  in  behalf  of  the  McAllister  bill  may  bear 
the  desired  fruit,  I  beg  to  remain, 

"  Your  faithful  servant, 

"  ANTHONY  WYCKOFF." 

Several  members  of  the  committee,  for  some  inexplicable 
reason,  found  humor  in  the  idea  of  a  national  university, 
and  they  laughed  aloud  until  their  peals  echoed  to  the  high, 
frescoed  ceiling.  The  rest  of  the  committee  looked  on  with 
grave  faces.  Sydney,  lifting  aloft  a  dignified  gavel,  silenced 
these  boisterous  ones  and  absolute  quiet  reigned. 

"  Has  the  gentleman  from  Illinois  anything  to  say?" 

The  gentleman  from  Illinois,  holding  a  parley  with  his 

ears  and  questioning  their  veracity,  answered  after  a  pause, 

"  Nothing."     Then,  after  a  minute  scrutiny  of  the  epistle, 

noting  that  it  was  written  on  different  stationery  and  on  a 

158 


THE   HERO  AS  A  FOOL 

date  a  week  later  than  the  genuine  letter  Ardmore  had  read 
to  him,  he  said : 

"  I  am  very  glad  to  learn  that  the  gentleman  from  Vir 
ginia  is  so  much  interested  in  matters  educational.  It  comes 
as  a  complete  surprise  to  me,  for  while  I  was  well  acquainted 
with  the  gentleman's  versatility,  I  never  knew  his  tastes 
were  so  catholic.  I  suppose  this  merely  goes  to  show  that  we 
may  know  our  friends  ever  so  well  and  yet  not  know  at  all 
the  precious  secrets  they  carry  locked  up  in  their  bosoms." 

"  The  remarks  of  the  gentleman  from  Illinois  are  irrele 
vant;  he  is  out  of  order." 

Bruce  said  not  a  word  further ;  for  wherein  lay  the  use  ? 
He  was  in  their  trap,  and  he  would  merely  wear  himself  out 
if  he  attempted  to  evade  the  snares  now.  A  few  minutes 
later  the  committee  adjourned  at  the  signal  from  Sydney's 
gavel,  swung  triumphantly  as  the  scepter  of  the  gods  whom 
foolish  mortals  assail  at  their  peril.  The  sandy-haired, 
freckle-faced  Ommaney  looked  at  him,  as  the  shrewd  Mer 
cury  might  have  glanced  at  Jove,  knowingly  and  slyly. 

Bruce,  seeking  Butler  in  the  Press  gallery  of  the  House, 
passed  hurriedly  through  the  corridors,  his  face  set  somberly, 
his  ears  anticipating  the  laughter  of  all  America.  He  quailed 
before  the  awful  rumble.  Terrible  is  the  fate  of  the  rising 
star,  signaled  from  afar  with  all  honors,  that  must  disappear 
behind  the  impenetrable  fogs  of  ridicule,  worst  of  all  elements 
that  throw  reputation  into  eclipse  and  obscurity. 

He  hastened  on,  absorbed  in  himself  and  the  pangs  of 
his  overthrow,  past  portrait  and  bust  of  the  forgotten  great, 
who  in  their  little  day  might  have  risen  victorious  over  a 
like  defeat  only  to  have  a  commonplace  effigy  raise  an  un 
heard  whisper  against  the  pall  of  oblivion  at  last.  Consider 
the  busts  in  Statuary  Hall  of  the  Capitol,  and  lay  to  fame 
the  preacher's  flattering  unction !  Lo !  even  the  poor  Indian, 

159 


THE   RADICAL 

at  whose  stern  and  stoned  lineaments  Bruce  glanced  as  he 
passed  on  his  way  up  the  west  stairway  of  the  House,  dropped 
back  to  the  remote  era  from  which  the  artist  had  tried  to 
rescue  him  the  moment  our  hero  met  Ardmore  face  to  face 
on  the  landing.  In  stiffness  of  posture,  in  deadness  of  com 
plexion,  the  Virginian  might  have  vied  with  those  whose 
marmoreal  effigies  were  honored  with  a  niche  in  the  Valhalla 
just  mentioned.  He  stood  at  gaze,  startled  and  harried  by  the 
lack  of  opportunity  there  was  of  running  for  cover. 

Bruce  took  hasty  counsel  with  his  judgment.  Should  he 
give  the  uncertain,  characterless  wretch  the  cut  direct,  look 
ing  on  him  as  one  unworthy  of  recognition  even  by  democ 
racy's  prime  exponent,  or  should  he  pass  him  the  lie?  His 
cutting  of  the  knot  proved  the  lesson  in  worldliness  that 
Washington  had  taught  him. 

"  Ardmore,"  he  asked,  his  long  lips  opening  humorously, 
"  what  made  you  do  that  to  me?  " 

Ardmore's  fretful  eye,  evading  Bruce,  ran  toward  the 
snow-capped  heights  of  "  Westward  Ho!  " — but  the  big  pic 
ture  was  as  blurred  to  him  as  his  own  thoughts.  Finally, 
glancing  down  on  the  floor,  he  drawled  out  his  answer. 

"  Do  what?  Oh,  yes,  you  mean  the  letter!  Well,  while 
I  value  your  friendship  highly,  McAllister,  high  as  any  man's 
in  Washington,  and  while  I  am  thankful  that  the  plain  people 
of  this  country  have  sent  a  man  to  Congress  as  worthy  of 
representing  their  cause  as  you  are,  still  I  wouldn't  permit 
myself — I  couldn't  have  it  on  my  conscience — to  stand  in 
the  way  of  a  university  that  is  going  to  do  so  much  for 
the  poor  talented  youth  of  the  land.  Who  knows,  McAl 
lister,  but  that  when  my  boy  grows  up  I  may  wish  him  to  go 
there  and  secure  its  benefits.  A  magnificent  project,  McAl 
lister;  a  magnificent  project." 

Bruce  continued  his  journey. 
160 


CHAPTER  XII 

ONLY   THE   PRESIDENT 

BRUCE  had  an  appointment  with  the  President  at 
eleven  o'clock  and,  since  he  was  a  full  half  hour  ahead 
of  time,  he  sat  himself  on  one  of  the  benches  in  La 
fayette  Square  to  squander  it.  What  better  place  is  there  for 
the  spendthrift  of  time  to  lavish  a  purseful  of  that  precious 
gold?  Pleasant  it  was  for  Bruce  to  find  himself  far  from 
the  rumble  of  the  noisy  House,  the  crowded  lobbies,  the 
squabbles  of  the  committee  rooms,  from  job-  and  favor-hunt 
ing  constituents.  The  fern-leaf  beeches  wore  a  new  coat  of 
green,  the  tulips  were  flaunting  bold  heads  above  the  ground, 
the  hyacinths  were  out  in  vivid  glory,  the  golden  bells  swayed 
their  yellow  chimes  to  the  winds,  and  the  pink  and  white 
magnolia  buds  were  unfolding  to  the  warm  air.  Each  of  the 
city's  many  squares  and  circles,  into  which  the  streets  ran 
as  spokes  into  a  hub,  was  aglow  with  color — so  many  wheels 
of  a  stately  equipage  bedecked  for  the  festival  of  flowers. 
Spring  had  come  in  all  its  glory ! 

"  How  good  it  seems  to  be  here !  "  Bruce  said  to  himself, 
throwing  his  arms  wide  out,  breathing  in  with  full  chest  the 
fragrant  air.  Nature,  to  his  singularly  unassthetic  tastes, 
made  no  appeal,  but  he  had  none  the  less  a  certain  inconsistent 
fondness  for  many  of  her  choicest  gifts,  as  one  may  be  nega 
tively  responsive  to  one's  godmother,  but  keenly  partial  to 
her  birthday  remembrances. 

"  Talking  to  yourself?    A  bad  habit,  McAllister.    It  may 
161 


THE  RADICAL 

prove  that  unpopularity  has  reduced  you  to  your  own  com 
pany." 

The  ironical  fanfare,  announcing  the  great  Fiske,  fretted 
Bruce's  ear  before  he  looked  up  to  meet  the  equivocal  smile 
of  the  ironical  potentate  himself.  "  I  am  fond  of  talking 
to  myself,"  he  rejoined  laughingly  by  way  of  defense,  "  and 
then  I'm  sure  of  just  the  audience  I  want." 

"  I  dare  say.  Stupid  but  select.  All  selectness  has  that 
virtue,  McAllister.  I've  practically  given  up  a  search  for 
intelligence  among  the  respectabilities."  Delivering  himself 
thus,  as  if  the  temptation  to  which  'Bruce  had  exposed  him 
were  greater  than  he  could  resist,  Fiske  sat  down  beside 
Bruce  on  the  park  bench,  his  neatly  gloved  hand  toying  with 
the  light  bamboo  cane  that  he  carried  invariably.  "  His 
tongue,"  says  our  gossip,  "  was  so  sharp  that  it  was  needless 
for  him  to  carry  a  stick  for  other  than  purposes  of  play." 

"  I  am  very  fond  of  this  spot.  I  never  miss  walking 
through  it  when  I  can,"  went  on  Fiske.  He  removed  his 
hat  and  mopped  his  broad  brow  with  his  handkerchief.  How 
much  older,  more  haggard  and  worn  Bruce  looked  beside 
him!  What  a  poor  figure  his  coarse-featured,  swarthy  face 
and  rail-like  form  cut  when  forced  into  comparison  ^vith  the 
huge  but  finely  proportioned  Fiske,  dressed  as  if  in  conformity 
with  the  rules  of  Polonius,  handsome  but  none  the  less  strong 
of  countenance.  Bruce's  sensitiveness  was  painfully  alive 
to  the  difference. 

"A  grand  morning  nature  has  given  us,"  continued 
Fiske,  who  had  laid  his  usual  reticence  aside  as  a  monarch 
his  formal  robes  of  state ;  "  and  she  doesn't  want  any  office 
for  it,  either.  Lord,  Lord,  what  weather  we  should  have 
if  the  office  seekers  had  control  over  it!  Summer  will  be 
here,  McAllister,  before  we  know  it ;  the  national  convention 
is  right  at  our  heels." 

162 


ONLY  THE   PRESIDENT 

While  usually  the  subject  that  lay  nearest  Fiske's  heart 
was  no  more  on  the  tip  of  his  tongue  than  that  perfectly 
possessed  and  well-controlled  organ  would  shock  its  owner 
by  appearing  on  his  sleeve,  still  he  had  no  discomforting 
hesitancy  about  opening  his  mind  to  the  trusty  McAllister. 
A  smile  played  around  Bruce's  long  mouth  as  he  thought  of 
Fiske's  valid  claims  to  the  presidency  from  a  country  that 
vaunts  so  lustily  of  its  democracy  around  election  time! 
Unlike  Fiske  he  let  his  ironical  thought  pass  unphrased. 
The  silent  man  often  has  the  advantage  of  looking  on  the 
world  as  from  a  curtained  window,  seeing  everything  that 
goes  on  around  him  while  he  himself  may  be  but  dimly 
descried. 

Shaw's  presidential  star  was  in  the  ascendency  just  now, 
and  the  mysterious  laws  of  politics  were  weaving  a  nebulous 
veil  around  the  competitors  anxious  to  display  their  brilliant 
light  from  the  same  exalted  position.  Fiske,  not  philosopher 
enough  to  see  that  justice  has  no  more  to  do  with  astronomical 
than  moral  laws,  was  cut  to  the  quick  that  his  country  should 
prefer  a  demagogue  and  a  knave  to  a  man  like  himself  who 
had  served  it  patriotically  if  ironically.  His  judgment  of 
Shaw  was  not  untinctured  with  jealousy,  although  he  him 
self  would  have  scorned  the  insinuation.  Which  of  the 
passions  can  disguise  itself  so  cleverly  as  jealousy  in  order 
to  become  a  welcome  guest  in  the  houses  of  those  who  hate 
it  most  ? 

Fiske's  chances  for  the  presidency  were  not  flattering, 
but  he  made  them  assume  an  obsequious  position  before  his 
ambition  by  turning  his  desires  into  hopes,  his  hopes  into 
belief,  and  arguing  that  when  the  decisive  hour  came  the 
bandage  would  fall  from  America's  eyes  and  she  would  see 
her  mistake.  He  prayed  that  this  might  come  to  pass  more 
for  his  daughter  Georgia's  sake  than  for  his  own.  His 

163 


THE   RADICAL 

conscience  told  him  that  he  owed  her  the  presidency,  and 
unless  that  debt  were  paid  there  could  be  no  peace  for 
his  mind. 

He  catechised  Bruce  unsparingly  concerning  the  forth 
coming  convention,  and  the  answers  came  with  a  bluntness 
and  rapidity  that  would  have  delighted  him  had  they  been 
more  favorable  to  his  desires. 

"  Yes,"  said  Fiske,  knitting  his  ponderous  brows,  when 
Bruce  had  done,  "  Shaw  has  Anthony  WyckofFs  support, 
and  that  would  seem  to  mean  a  good  deal  just  now.  They 
say,  you  know,  that  a  candidate  without  WyckofFs  backing 
stands  no  more  show  before  the  convention  than  a  spell 
binder  who  attacks  the  reputations  of  Washington  or  Lin 
coln.  I  could  have  had  WyckofFs  support  if  I  had  bargained 
for  it  with  my  independence;  his  go-betweens  came  to  me 
before  they  went  to  Shaw;  but  I  declared  myself  frankly 
upon  the  question  of  mail  subsidies,  and  they  went  away 
disgruntled.  I  can't  stand  up  for  what  my  conscience  doesn't 
approve,  and  I  won't.  All  the  same,  the  rope  I've  paid  out 
to  Shaw  on  the  subsidy  bill  may  hang  him  on  the  platform 
of  the  convention  instead  of  lifting  him  from  it  to  the 
presidency." 

There  was  a  half  sardonic,  half  humorous  light  in 
Fiske's  fierce  eyes,  an  expression  on  his  bronzed  face  that 
Bruce  had  never  seen  there  before,  and  it  set  him  as  far 
adrift  as  if  the  stream  of  conversation  were  carrying  him 
miles  past  the  subject  of  discussion.  Fiske  drew  a  parallelo 
gram  on  the  sand  of  the  path  with  his  cane  and  went  on : 

"  I've  often  told  you,  McAllister,  that  I  consider  most 
of  your  views  madly  radical,  but  at  the  same  time  I  don't 
believe  in  handing  the  United  States  over  to  a  man  like 
Wyckoff,  and  saying,  '  Here,  you  tell  us  what  you  want  done 
with  the  machine  and  we'll  do  it.'  There's  no  use  in  being 

164 


ONLY  THE  PRESIDENT 

President  if  there  is  to  be  another  President  over  you.  I 
can't  creep  under  any  man's  thumb,  it  isn't  in  my  nature. 
However,  a  good  deal  of  this  Shaw  boom  is  mere  noise  and 
inflation.  You  can  take  it  from  me  that  Shaw  never  will 
be  nominated." 

Fiske  rose,  drawing  out  his  watch.  "  I  see  I  must  go 
now."  He  swung  his  cane  jauntily  and  remarked :  "  Shaw 
reminds  me  of  that  statue  of  General  Jackson  over  there; 
it's  a  ludicrously  bad  piece  of  art;  but  it's  so  unfortunately 
well  balanced  on  its  hind  legs  that  it  would  take  an  absurd 
amount  of  effort  to  upset  it." 

"  But  what  a  noise  it  will  make  when  it  does  tumble !  " 
rejoined  Bruce. 

Fiske  nodded,  moving  on  with  his  sure  step,  his  nervous 
cane  scattering  the  pebbles  on  the  path  to  the  right  and  the 
left  as  if  they  were  so  many  Sydney  P.  Shaws.  Bruce 
watched  him  and,  guessing  what  was  going  on  in  his  friend's 
mind,  he  smiled  to  himself.  Suddenly  the  Speaker  drew  to  a 
halt,  lifted  his  hat,  and  stood  talking  with  his  bared  head. 
A  slight  curve  in  the  path,  a  protrusion  of  a  tree  branch 
hid  from  Bruce  the  woman  to  whom  evidently  Fiske  was 
talking,  as  the  tangle  of  moss  and  vine  in  some  long-neglected 
garden  might  screen  the  statue  of  its  protecting  goddess  from 
view.  A  moment  afterwards  the  Speaker's  burly  body  passed 
on  and  then,  to  Bruce's  mild  astonishment,  Miss  Inez  Ham 
mersmith  came  marching  up  slowly  to  the  path  that  led 
to  his  bench,  much  as  if  she  were  the  tutelary  goddess  of  the 
square  and  had  stepped  from  her  boscage-hidden  pedestal 
into  full  sight.  He  rose. 

"  Lafayette  Square  seems  to  have  been  annexed  by  Con 
gress  this  morning,"  she  smiled. 

"  It  would  be  a  pity  if  it  were,"  he  returned,  "  to  dis 
possess  spring  and  Miss  Inez  Hammersmith." 

165 


THE   RADICAL 

"  You  might  give  us  the  privilege  of  the  floor  by  special 
legislation." 

"  After  you  have  taken  it  by  storm  we  may  be  lucky 
not  to  be  turned  out."  He  entered  into  her  lighter  mood 
with  a  laugh,  and  then  he  passed  on  to  say,  "  I  was  won 
dering  who  that  was  whom  Fiske's  big  body  hid  from 
view." 

"  What  a  splendid  opportunity  the  situation  offered  to 
your  imagination." 

"  I  dared  not  use  it.  My  disappointment  would  have 
been  too  great  had  I  guessed  you  and  discovered  another." 

"  But  your  delight,"  she  bowed,  "  might  have  been  the 
greater  had  you  imagined  it  another  and  discovered  me." 

"  I  could  not  imagine  it  greater  than  it  is." 

"  I  shall,"  she  said,  seating  herself  in  answer  to  his  invi 
tation  ;  "  after  so  fine  a  compliment  I  should  be  churlish  to 
refuse  it." 

There  was  for  her  a  peculiar  delight  in  defying  the  con 
ventions  to  occupy  that  seat — a  delight,  let  us  hasten  to  say, 
that  was  none  the  less  great  because  the  chances  of  being 
seen  at  that  unaristocratic  hour  were  small. 

"  I  think,"  he  went  on,  "  it's  as  aggravating  to  see  only 
one  of  two  persons  in  a  conversation  as  to  hear  only  one 
half  of  a  dialogue." 

"  Do  you  think  so  ?  It  depends  on  the  dialogue  alto 
gether." 

"  And  on  the  person  hidden." 

"  Come,"  she  said,  her  brown  eyes  serious  and  staid, 
glancing  at  her  watch,  "  my  time  will  be  gone  in  a  few 
minutes  and  I  so  wish  to  know  about  the  last  developments 
of  your  bill.  It  interests  me  immensely." 

"  It  will  come  up  for  consideration  in  the  House  before 
long — that  is  the  latest  development.  The  unfortunate  let- 

166 


ONLY  THE   PRESIDENT 

ter  episode  accomplished  that  much,  anyway.  You  see,  it 
stirred  up  the  curiosity  and  sentiment  of  the  country,  and 
they  were  forced  to  let  the  bill  go  beyond  the  committee 
walls  to  let  folks  see  what  it  looked  like.  I  was  counting 
on  that." 

"  I  wanted  to  tell  you  the  night  you  called,"  she  said,  her 
voice  warm  and  low,  "  how  sorry  I  was  about  the  way  they 
ridiculed  and  abused  you  in  the  newspapers.  But  you  saw 
the  situation?  I  intended  to  write  afterwards — I  did  start 
a  letter  in  fact — but  something  interrupted  and  I  was  obliged 
to  give  it  over."  She  neglected  to  say  that  the  interruption 
came  from  within,  it  being  none  other  than  the  difficulty 
and  inconvenience  she  experienced  in  expressing  just  what 
she  wished  to  say  and  still  hold  herself  aloof  from  an  un 
dignified  warmth  and  a  frigidity  that  might  conceal  the  very 
sympathy  she  wished  to  extend. 

"  And  I  meant  to  tell  you  that  evening,  if  I  could  have 
seen  you  alone  long  enough  to  do  it,  that  you  were  in  the 
very  storm  center  of  the  letter  episode." 

"I  was?    How,  pray?" 

"  The  original  letter  was  dropped  on  the  floor  of  Mr. 
Dickinson's  studio  on  that  Monday  afternoon  when  Elaine 
and  I  met  you  and  Mrs.  Ten  Eyck  there." 

"Ah!"  she  gave  a  slight  start.  Her  thoughts  passed 
through  her  mind  so  rapidly,  each  suggesting  another  with 
which  it  was  associated,  that  they  seemed  like  a  crowd  in 
which  she  could  recognize  no  distinct  face,  but  from  which 
she  gained  a  distinct  impression.  The  resultant  impression 
in  this  case  was  Georgia's  expression  when  she  overheard 
Bruce  and  herself  mention  the  letter  in  the  studio  and 
Georgia's  after-anxiety  to  trace  a  certain  missing  epistle. 

"  You  remember,  perhaps,"  he  asked,  seeking  her  confi 
dence,  "  the  way  Mrs.  Ten  Eyck  turned  around  sharply  and 


THE   RADICAL 

stared  at  us  involuntarily  when  I  spoke  about  the  letter  to 
you?" 

"  I  have,"  she  said,  excluding  questions  on  that  score, 
"  a  distinct  recollection  of  it."  And  immediately  afterwards 
she  asked,  like  Columbine  walking  through  the  door  that 
Harlequin  had  opened  and  closing  the  window  through  which 
she  had  leaped  and  he  wished  to  follow,  "  And  to  this  orig 
inal  letter  there  remains  no  clew  ?  " 

For  a  second  the  closed  window  of  conversation  aroused 
his  distrust;  he  had  opened  all  avenues  of  approach  for  her; 
why  had  she  baffled  him  when  he  wished  to  follow?  Then 
Faith  pulled  Doubt's  finger  down,  and  into  her  hands,  to  do 
with  what  she  would,  he  put  his  fate.  He  disclosed  all :  the 
night  at  Ommaney's;  the  list  of  names  he  had  secured  from 
Ommaney  of  congressmen  who  held  stock  in  the  Trans 
oceanic  ;  the  unaccountable  loss  of  that  invaluable  document ; 
the  walk  home  with  Ardmore;  the  early  morning  reading 
of  the  original  Wyckoff  letter  in  the  shadow  of  the  Carnegie 
library;  Ommaney's  vacillation;  the  broken  promise.  He 
paused — inadvertency  had  all  but  led  him  to  link  Shaw's 
name  with  that  of  the  golden  Georgia. 

"  Go  on!  Go  on!  "  She  urged  him  forward  as  if  she 
stood  with  him  in  the  chariot  that  his  horses  were  pulling 
toward  a  winning  goal. 

He  went  back  to  fill  in  the  hurried  outline  he  had 
sketched,  painting  in  vivid  words  the  history  of  the  Trans 
oceanic,  of  the  part  he  suspected  Shaw  of  playing  in  it,  and 
how  he  had  discovered  through  the  agency  of  little  Butler 
that  there  was  scarcely  a  man  who  had  accepted  a  gift  of 
the  stock  from  the  Transoceanic  who  would  vote  in  favor 
of  his  Anti-Child  Labor  bill.  The  two  were  linked  and 
interlinked  with  condemnatory  chains. 

"  When  I  knew  that  the  Ommaney  list  was  lost  beyond 
168 


ONLY   THE   PRESIDENT 

the  hope  of  recovery,"  he  ended,  "  I  built  all  my  hopes  on 
the  Ardmore  letter.  If  Ardmore  had  kept  faith  with  me, 
and  if  I  had  that  letter  in  my  possession,  I  would  make  it 
do  service  for  complete  and  undermining  evidence." 

"  And  if  by  any  good  chance  the  letter  was  found  ?  "  she 
asked. 

"  Then  victory  would  surely  be  within  my  reach,"  he 
answered.  "  I  would  flash  the  recovered  letter  in  the  House 
before  the  astonished  eyes  ot  Messrs.  Shaw  and  Ommaney 
and  declare  that  I  had  come  by  the  telltale  Ommaney  list 
in  the  same  manner  and  the  same  way.  I  would  threaten 
to  produce  it  and  make  public  the  names  of  the  congressmen 
who  had  accepted  stock  in  the  Transoceanic  if  they  allowed 
my  Anti-Child  Labor  bill  to  go  down  in  defeat.  And  the 
bluff  will  work,  because  they  will  be  afraid  that  I  might 
make  good,  and  because  their  constituents  will  think  if  they 
voted  against  the  bill  they  must  have  been  bribed  with  the 
stock.  I  have  them  either  way !  But  at  any  rate,"  he  ended, 
"  I  shall  have  to  face  Congress  soon  and  trust  to  the  merits 
of  my  bill  for  victory." 

"  Oh,  if  I  could  find  it !  If  I  could  only  find  it!  "  she  ex 
claimed.  "  You  have  interested  me  in  it  so  deeply,  so  much 
of  the  action  has  gone  on  or  seems  to  have  gone  on  under 
my  very  eyes,  that  I  feel  very  much  as  one  does  at  the  theater 
when  one  knows  what  the  marplot  has  done  and  when  one 
would  give  warning  to  the  unsuspecting  victim  of  his  wiles. 
What  wouldn't  I  give  to  find  it !  " 

"  I  see,"  he  said,  "  you  wish  to  approach  the  illusion 
from  a  different  end,  give  up  your  spectator's  seat  and  take 
a  place  on  the  stage." 

"  It  has  the  virtue  at  least  of  being  more  active,  hasn't 
it?" 

"  Yes.  But  the  unfortunate  hero  will  be  none  the  better 
12  169 


THE  RADICAL 

off  for  it.  For  in  either  case  you  will  lose  your  interest  in 
him  when  the  curtain  drops  and  he  stands  justified  before 
the  world  that  ridiculed  him." 

Again  she  detached  herself  by  assuming,  to  his  more 
bitter  disappointment  this  time,  an  impersonal  attitude. 
"  The  impartial  critic,"  she  returned,  "  will  hold  his  judg 
ment  in  abeyance  until  the  play  is  done.  If  we  take  part 
in  it  we  may  not  speak  until  the  audience  has  pronounced 
its  verdict."  She  glanced  at  her  watch  and  signaled  her 
despair  at  the  lateness  of  the  hour. 

"  I'm  in  the  same  predicament,"  he  smiled.  "  I  had  an 
appointment  with  the  President  for  eleven.  I'm  ten  minutes 
late,  you  see."  The  appointment  was  rather  indefinite,  his 
lateness  a  mere  matter  of  conjecture. 

"The  compliment  is  subtle;  I  go  before  I  succumb  to 
its  craft."  Her  black  hat  with  its  bird-of-paradise  plumage, 
and  gray  gown,  stood  out  in  portraitlike  definiteness  against 
the  overhanging  green  of  the  fern-leaf  beech  when  she  bowed 
her  final  farewell. 

He  watched  her,  vital,  full  of  life  and  the  love  of  life 
as  the  spring  morning  itself,  until  she  disappeared  around 
the  angle  of  the  historic  St.  John's  Church,  which,  amid  its 
modern  surroundings,  stood  out  like  an  antique  in  the  cabinet 
of  a  parvenu's  vulgar  parlor. 

"And  I  thought  her  all  marble  once!"  he  muttered. 
"  Well,  she  may  be,  but  I've  had  my  hand  on  fire  that  left 
me  colder." 

A  moment  afterwards  he  hastened  across  the  street  to  the 
White  House,  which  loomed  forth  from  the  shrubbery  like 
a  modest  white  flower,  opening  immaculate  petals,  fold  on 
fold,  to  a  genial  sun.  The  fountains  plashed  and  played 
musically;  the  green  grass  crept  affectionately  up  to  the 
freestone  as  if  it  would  linger  there  and  not  pass  on.  White 

170 


ONLY  THE  PRESIDENT 

and  purple  hyacinths,  and  tulips  of  gold,  pink,  and  red,  looked 
longingly  up  at  the  balustrade  that  gave  definite  outline  to 
the  second  story.  The  massive  Treasury  on  one  side,  the 
big  War,  State  and  Navy  building  on  the  other,  reminded 
one  that  architecture,  like  politics  itself,  may  force  strange 
relationships,  and  that  harmony  in  the  one  case  as  in  the  other 
may  suffer  rupture  if  left  to  chance  instead  of  prearrangement. 

Bruce  passed  under  the  four-pillared  Ionic  portico  and 
up  the  narrow  black-walnut  staircase  to  the  President's  office. 
The  small  square  room,  with  its  old-fashioned  grate  and 
white  marble  mantel,  yellow  now  with  age,  simple  almost 
as  Bruce's  own  living  room,  made  democracy's  exponent  feel 
at  home.  Only  the  secretary's  desk  that  stood  between  the 
oblong  windows  at  the  end  of  the  room  set  the  mild  stamp 
of  contesting  officialdom  on  it.  Congressmen,  senators,  office 
holders,  army  and  navy  officers,  politicians,  visitors,  a  diplo 
mat  or  two,  claimed  each  available  inch  of  space.  And  still 
the  door  opened  and  the  colored  doorkeeper  passed  in  and 
out,  bearing  cards  to  the  secretary,  and  still  delegations  and 
visitors  sought  admission. 

The  President,  a  tall,  thin,  white-haired  man,  moved 
quickly  from  caller  to  caller,  dismissing  a  delegation  with  a 
polite  word  of  welcome  followed  by  a  suave  word  of  farewell, 
granting  this  man's  request  and  that  man's  petition.  Bruce's 
turn  came  presently  and  he  said  to  him,  grasping  his  hand 
cordially:  "  Wait,  if  you  can,  McAllister;  don't  run  off,  I'll 
be  through  soon." 

The  windows  back  of  the  secretary's  desk,  opening  on  the 
south  portico,  attracted  Bruce  and  he  edged  his  way  thither. 
On  the  white  sill  of  the  further  window  sat  a  senator  and 
next  to  him  the  governor  of  his  State,  and  the  senator 
whispered  sardonically  to  the  governor: 

"  Have  you  seen  his  majesty  yet?  " 
171 


THE  RADICAL 

"  No,"  replied  the  governor  under  his  breath  angrily ; 

"  but  from  what  I  gather  it's  useless;  the  old will  turn 

me  down." 

And  still  the  door  closed  and  shut,  and  shut  and  closed, 
and  visitors  came  in  and  passed  out,  some  of  them  timidly  as 
to  a  sanctuary,  others  boldly  and  unannounced.  The  Pres 
ident,  husky  of  voice  now,  weary-eyed,  moved  back  and  forth 
transacting  momentous  and  trivial  business  with  equal  energy 
and  speed. 

Bruce  thought  of  the  fair  spring  morning  outside  and  its 
whispered  promise  of  peace,  and  of  the  faction,  the  intrigue, 
the  greed  that  wound  their  insidious  ways  here  within,  and  he 
recalled  for  the  first  time  since  he  had  read  them  years  ago, 
the  words  of  the  first  Harrison,  whispered  in  a  death-bed 
delirium:  "  My  dear  madam,  I  did  not  direct  that  your  hus 
band  should  be  turned  out.  I  did  not  know  it.  I  tried  to 
prevent  it."  It's  of  a  piece  with  the  wisdom  of  destiny  never 
to  tell  us  where  and  when  our  knowledge  is  to  find  its  par 
ticular  application;  otherwise  we  might  prefer  bliss  at  the 
expense  of  instruction. 

Bruce  turned  and  gazed  out  of  the  window  along  the 
green  lawns  south  of  the  White  House,  tree  and  flower  be 
decked,  that  sloped  away  to  the  Potomac.  Soft  as  the  color 
of  silver,  time-subdued,  Bruce  saw  its  lordly  waters  curve 
broadly  outward,  and  flash  and  sparkle  like  a  field  of  jewels 
in  the  sun.  And  there  amid  the  generous  sward  apportioned 
for  it,  upward  toward  the  sky  towered  the  Washington  Mon 
ument,  aureoled  with  a  sky  of  deep  turquoise  blue. 

At  length  the  secretary  called  Bruce's  attention;  he 
turned.  The  President  beckoned,  and  Bruce  joining  him 
they  walked  through  the  narrow  door  and  into  the  Cabinet 
room.  The  room  was  like  a  man,  capable  and  potent,  in 
tent  on  telling  performances,  relying  on  the  power  of  his 

172 


ONLY  THE  PRESIDENT 

personality  rather  than  his  garb  to  enforce  respect.  The 
long  table  with  its  chairs  pushed  under  it  in  suggestive  empti 
ness,  ran  almost  the  full  length  of  the  floor,  charts  and  por 
traits  claimed  the  walls;  a  bookcase  and  a  huge  globe  held 
sway  in  the  corners. 

"  I'm  glad  to  get  a  chance  to  talk  over  your  bill  with  you, 
McAllister.  I  know  your  views  express  those  of  the  radical 
wing  of  the  minority,"  said  the  President  sinking  wearily 
on  the  large  leather  lounge  that  ran  along  the  wall.  The 
President's  eyes  looked  pathetically  tired  as  he  spoke  and  a 
deprecatory  smile  flitted  across  his  wan  face — the  radical  wing 
of  the  minority  was  a  phrase  for  the  appearance  of  which  in 
contemporary  politics  Bruce  was  responsible.  He  looked 
at  Bruce  like  a  man  trained  by  long  experience  to  read  char 
acter  from  physiognomy.  Always  the  natural  thing  for  Bruce 
McAllister  to  do  was  the  natural  thing,  and  he  slipped  down 
in  his  chair,  flung  his  right  leg  over  his  left  knee  and  chatted 
on  at  his  ease. 

He  pointed  out  that  the  Transoceanic  Ship  Subsidy  bill 
was  class  legislation,  a  present  of  so  many  millions  that  the 
Government  was  asked  to  bestow  on  a  handful  of  kings  of 
commerce ;  and  he  hinted  at  the  fact  as  broadly  as  he  could, 
that  the  enemies  of  his  bill  in  Congress  were  the  allies  of  the 
Transoceanic's  fortunes.  He  spoke  eloquently  of  what  his 
own  bill  meant  to  the  nation  and  the  citizens  of  the  future. 

"  I  confess,"  said  the  President  when  Bruce  had  done, 
"  that  you've  called  my  attention  to  features  in  both  bills  that 
I  hadn't  thought  of  before,  and  while  I  can't  promise  now 
to  work  in  favor  of  the  one  or  against  the  other,  still  I'll  give 
all  you  had  to  say  my  most  earnest  consideration.  I'm  bit 
terly  opposed  to  the  children  of  the  nation  being  thrown  into 
what  you  call  the  '  hopper  of  capitalism  '  and  being  taken  out 
of  it  crippled  and  injured,  but  at  the  same  time,  McAllister, 

173 


THE   RADICAL 

the  trouble  with  those  whom  you  call  your  people  is  that  they 
never  know  just  what  they  want.  The  people  you  inveigh 
against  come  here  with  a  definite  scheme  they  want  put 
through;  but  your  people  seem  utterly  without  any  philos 
ophy;  they  have  no  definite  views." 

"  The  time  is  fast  coming  when  they  will  have,  Mr.  Pres 
ident;  they  are  becoming  more  and  more  self-conscious  every 
day." 

"  But  meanwhile,"  smiled  the  President  deprecatorily, 
drawing  in  his  underlip,  "  the  big  commercial  interests  that 
make  the  country  great  come  here  with  clear-cut  and  sharply 
defined  purposes.  Now,  where's  my  choice?  Well,  I'm 
glad  to  have  had  this  confidential  chat  with  you,  and  when 
the  time  comes  I  won't  forget  what  you've  said.  If  there's 
anything  you  think  that  I  can  do  for  your  people,  come  in 
and  let's  talk  it  over.  I  don't  suppose  that  I  can  ever  do 
very  much;  I'm  only  the  President  you  know,  and  while  the 
Constitution  doesn't  say  so,  my  chief  duty  is  to  see  that  our 
vessel  of  commerce  doesn't  smash  up  against  the  rocks  and 
drag  the  rest  of  us  down  in  the  wreck." 

"  The  President,"  said  Bruce  to  himself  on  the  way  down 
stairs,  "  seems  to  be  a  very  nice  old  gentleman ;  but  all  the 
same  it's  peculiar  the  different  angles  we  get  on  the  same  job. 
I  suppose  it  all  depends  upon  the  boss  for  whom  you  think 
you're  working  and  the  people  to  whom  you  think  you're 
delivering  the  meat." 


174 


CHAPTER   XIII 

ON    THE   RELATIONSHIP    OF    SOAPSUDS    TO   DESTINY 

RR.  DICKINSON  had  taken  to  the  woods  for  the  day, 
9  retreating  in  dismay  before  that  invincible  foe  of 
art's  unconventionalities,  the  sworn  and  mercenary 
enemy  of  its  traditional  love  for  those  picturesque  effects  that 
can  be  obtained  only  by  throwing  matter  out  of  its  proper 
place.  We  refer  to  the  naiad  who  has  her  aquatic  retreat  in 
the  bottom  of  a  pail  and  who  once  a  fortnight  emerges,  brush 
in  hand  from  its  surface,  foaming  with  soap,  to  wage  Philis 
tine  warfare  against  the  nonconforming  Dickinson. 

But  the  Virginian  woods,  their  vernal  robe  bedecked  with 
the  vestal  white  of  the  dogwood  blossom,  allured  more  for 
the  nonce  than  the  musty  studio,  and  off  he  went,  merely 
leaving  behind  him  the  injunction,  more  habitual  than  terri 
fying,  "  Don't  disturb  anything!  " 

"  An'  for  phwat  would  th'  loikes  av  me  disthurb  any 
thing?  "  soliloquized  the  Hibernian  naiad,  proceeding  to  an 
swer  her  own  query  by  straightway  disturbing  everything  she 
could  lay  her  hands  on.  Over  the  floor  rolled  a  stream  of 
soapsuds  and  hot  water  in  amateur  rivalry  with  the  lordly 
Potomac,  sounding  afar.  "  The  Man  of  the  Mills  "  trem 
bled  lest  the  naiad  take  off  his  head  in  her  mistaken  zeal  to 
wash  his  face.  The  grand  settee,  with  its  spangled  and 
diaphanous  drapery,  looked  as  if  it  would  float  away  through 
the  window,  and  the  Spanish  waiting  desk  stood  on  three 

175 


THE  RADICAL 

undecided  legs — a  proportion  not  conducive  to  stability  of 
character  or  of  posture — and  in  that  decidedly  dangerous 
position  it  had  the  hardihood  to  contemplate  whether  resist 
ing  the  stream  was  easier  than  riding  off  on  the  bubbling 
waters. 

The  accidental  assistance  of  Mrs.  Kelly's  scrub  brush 
and  her  plump  shoulder  ended  its  indecision  and  over  it  went, 
throwing  out  its  wooden  leaf  in  terror  at  its  own  rashness; 
while  the  discourager  of  hesitancy  threw  up  her  arms  in  dis 
may  at  her  recklessness  and  caught  the  sufferer  from  it  in  her 
stout,  rescuing  hands.  The  desk  was  placed  now  beyond  the 
reach  of  danger  on  shore  where  the  soapy  sea  broke  wrath- 
fully  and  ineffectually  at  its  feet;  but  not  so  its  contents, 
which  were  scattered  in  all  directions  and  floated  off  an  easy 
prey  to  the  elements. 

Against  this  sea  of  troubles  the  doughty  naiad  took  up 
arms  and  flew  with  mythological  contempt  for  consequences 
to  the  rescue.  The  waves  retreated,  surrendering  to  her  in 
cantations  and  her  charms;  so  quick  was  she  that  there 
seemed  twenty-one  slight  and  agile  nymphs  in  twenty-one 
different  places  rather  than  the  one  adipose  naiad  fixed  in 
separably  to  one  set  of  rheumatic  bones.  The  pile  of  papers, 
letters,  memoranda,  bills,  receipts  and  half  finished  sketches 
gave  willing  witness  to  her  life-saving  powers.  She  put  them 
back  where  they  belonged  or  where  she  thought  they  belonged, 
and  they  were  so  rejoiced  to  be  on  dry  land  after  their  escape 
from  drowning  that  they  were  not  disposed  to  raise  any  issue 
on  the  propriety  of  their  environment. 

The  red  leather  pad  and  its  panoply  of  blotters  proved 
the  least  bit  ungrateful  and  stubborn,  but  Mrs.  Kelly,  heed 
less  of  its  protest  against  the  dimensions  into  which  she  in 
sisted  it  should  fit,  whisked  it  into  the  place  selected  in  less 
than  no  time.  With  a  groan,  wrung  from  it  by  this  pitiless 

176 


SOAPSUDS  AND  DESTINY 

treatment,  it  dropped  a  letter  on  the  floor  as  a  dumb  plea 
for  a  more  humane  and  kindly  regard  for  inanimate  objects. 
Mrs.  Kelly  stooped  to  pick  it  up  and  restore  it  to  favor,  but 
on  noting  that  the  envelope  was  sealed,  stamped  and  ad 
dressed,  she  could  not  help  concluding  that  it  was  meant 
rather  for  the  person  whose  name  it  bore  than  for  herself. 
Such  intelligence,  be  it  observed,  is  more  mythological  than 
human ! 

"  Och,  but  thim  painter  byes  be  careless  lads,"  said  to 
herself  this  Hibernian  naiad  and  concluding,  as  the  majority 
of  us  will,  whether  scrubwoman,  wife  of  Croesus,  or  blue 
stocking,  or  social  butterfly,  that  she  knew  better  what  the  art 
ist  wants  than  he  knows  himself,  she  dried  her  hands  on  her 
apron,  walked  outside  and  mailed  her  discovery.  She  returned 
to  her  task,  smiling  blissfully  at  her  good  deed  and  accepting 
in  advance  the  artist's  outpour  of  thanks.  "  Ye  naden't  min- 
tion  it  at  all,  at  all,  Mr.  Dickinson,"  she  replied,  holding 
an  imaginary  conversation  with  the  illustrious.  "  Many  an' 
many  is  the  toime  ye  wint  out  av  yer  way  to  do  me  a  favor. 
Shure  it  was  nothin'  at  all,  the  mail  box  bein'  just  outside  av 
th'  dour  an'  thin  th'  sthamp  was  on  th'  letter  so  I  hadn't  to 
break  a  nickel  to  buy  a  sthamp,  which  I  ginerally  do  thim 
few  toimes  I  sind  a  loine  to  me  boy  Moike,  that's  in  Phila 
delphia." 

It  was  ten  in  the  morning  when  the  naiad  ended  her 
monologue,  divested  herself  of  her  apron  and  other  garments 
that  in  this  Comstockian  era  of  literature  we  dare  not  men 
tion  and  disappeared — whether  at  the  bottom  of  the  pail  or 
elsewhere  we  know  not.  And  it  was  at  one  o'clock  of  the 
same  afternoon  that  her  maid  handed  to  Miss  Inez  Hammer 
smith  the  very  letter  over  which  the  scrubwoman  had  waxed 
voluble.  So  it  is  the  most  humble,  all  unbeknown  to  them 
selves,  may  influence  the  destinies  of  the  mighty,  and  we  can- 

177 


THE  RADICAL 

not  but  wonder  whether  Mrs.  Kelly  would  have  disappeared 
with  her  pail  (or  in  it)  in  the  same  contented  spirit  if  she  had 
known  what  effect  her  soap  bubbles  would  have  on  the  path 
that  the  aristocratic  Inez  Hammersmith  was  to  tread. 

There  were  two  other  letters  in  the  same  mail  and  Inez 
of  course  opened  the  most  interesting  last.  Her  ingenuity 
having  nothing  better  to  do,  tried  to  arrive  at  the  name  of  the 
correspondent  and  the  nature  of  the  contents  by  the  hand 
writing  on  the  envelope.  Baffled  here,  it  turned  to  the  com 
monplace  method  of  breaking  the  seal.  A  moment  after 
wards  the  letter  fluttered  out  of  her  hand  on  the  floor,  and 
her  eyes,  as  wide  open  as  astonishment  could  hold  them, 
followed  it. 

To  solve  the  mystery  of  its  presence  fascinated  her  at 
first,  perplexed  her  afterwards,  bewildered  her  finally — a 
process  familiar  to  youth  attempting  to  unriddle  the  meaning 
of  life.  She  gave  it  over,  turning  away  from  the  impassive 
sphinx,  smiling  enigmatically  at  her  whys,  whences  and  whith- 
ers.  The  moral  issue  besieged  her.  Should  she  return 
it  to  Georgia?  Honesty  said  yes.  But  sophistry  counseled 
no,  arguing  that  Georgia  had  not  disclosed  to  her  the  nature 
of  the  lost,  misaddressed  letter  and  that  this  might  not  be  it, 
anyway.  Here,  moreover,  was  the  opportunity  to  take  her 
much-coveted  place  in  the  game  of  intrigue  that  Georgia  her 
self  had  played  with  such  enviable,  masterly  skill.  Inez  was 
not  romantic;  but  she  throbbed  with  the  love  of  life,  and  life 
ebbs  and  flows  in  plot  and  counterplot. 

She  recalled  with  a  peculiar  start,  as  if  fate  had  prompted 
them,  her  words  to  Bruce  in  Lafayette  Square.  They  were 
in  the  nature  of  a  promise,  and  would  it  not  be  foolish  to 
listen  to  a  punctilio  and  run  the  risk  of  being  laughed  to  scorn 
by  opportunity  afterwards?  Her  heart  whispered  that  affec 
tion  for  Bruce  McAllister,  a  desire  to  further  his  fortunes, 

178 


SOAPSUDS  AND  DESTINY 

were  makeweights  that  she  was  tossing  on  the  scale  to  pull 
conscience  down;  but  she  frowned  the  whisper  into  a  sullen 
silence.  Against  a  cabal  so  formidable  what  chance  had  un 
attractive  honesty,  standing  alone?  It  acknowledged  itself 
in  error  and  beat  a  gracious  retreat  from  the  field. 

Bruce,  she  knew,  was  appointed  by  an  arrangement  with 
the  minority  leader  and  the  Steering  Committee  to  speak  on 
behalf  of  his  bill  on  the  morrow,  but  Inez  concluded  that  if 
the  letter  was  to  lend  service  in  accordance  with  the  weight 
of  its  merit,  it  ought  to  be  in  Bruce  McAllister's  hands  to 
day.  Time  to  him  probably  was  precious  beyond  price.  She 
looked  out  of  the  window  on  Farragut  Square,  her  gaze  wan 
dering  absently  from  the  flower  beds  to  the  figure  of  the 
admiral  fixed  in  eternal  bronze,  and  from  the  admiral  it  wrav- 
ered  back  to  the  flower  beds ;  then  her  resolution  was  taken. 
She  would  leave  untrod  the  unending  circle  of  Washington 
calls  for  the  afternoon,  break  her  calendared  appointments 
and  seek  Bruce  out  at  the  Capitol/ 

She  strolled  leisurely,  choosing  the  longer  road,  veering 
her  course  into  the  tree-shaded  lawn  of  the  Mall.  Spring 
accompanied  her  every  foot  of  the  way,  and  so  finally  she 
entered  the  Capitol  itself,  standing  citadel-like  on  its  hill. 

Meanwhile,  Mr.  Bruce  McAllister  was  well  on  the  way 
with  his  speech  in  favor  of  his  own  bill,  for  the  Steering  Com 
mittee  at  the  last  moment  compelled  a  change  in  plans,  throw 
ing  its  whole  programme  for  the  remainder  of  the  session 
forward  in  order  to  save  a  day.  Bruce  was  perfectly  amen 
able;  a  day  in  so  far  as  he  could  see  made  no  difference  at 
all  in  results.  If  the  maker  of  dies  could  hold  converse  with 
the  morrow,  eternity  might  still  be  waiting  for  the  cast. 

The  moment  it  was  heralded  around  the  Capitol  unex 
pectedly  that  Bruce  McAllister  "  was  up  "  the  restaurant, 
lobbies  and  lounging  rooms  yielded  to  the  greater  attraction  ; 

179 


THE  RADICAL 

senators  crossed  over  through  the  connecting  corridors;  un 
occupied  seats  on  the  floor  were  scarce  as  unexpectant  listen 
ers.  Correspondents  scampered  to  their  seats  in  the  Press 
gallery ;  and  soon  the  visitors'  galleries  offered  no  discourage 
ment  to  the  orator  by  their  frigid  emptiness.  Paulledet,  of 
Vermont,  literally  caught  his  death  of  cold — a  deplorable  loss 
to  his  country — by  jumping  out  of  his  hot  bath  in  the  base 
ment,  rushing  upstairs  and  exposing  himself  to  the  draught. 

Each  listener  awaited  the  entrance  of  that  most  interest 
ing  presence,  the  unexpected,  and  the  quiet  had  the  dramatic 
intensity  that  befits  the  stage  when  no  one  knows,  save  the 
actor,  how  things  are  going  to  turn  out ;  and  in  this  case  the 
actor,  not  knowing  himself,  helped  to  create  a  situation 
ideally  intense.  McAllister  undoubtedly  had  brilliant  qual 
ities,  ran  the  public  version  before  the  lifting  of  the  curtain, 
but  he  had  made  a  hopeless  fool  of  himself  in  committee  over 
the  Ardmore  epistle,  and  the  question  now  was  whether  or 
not  he  could  remount  the  pedestal  from  which  his  own  folly 
so  bunglingly  had  tossed  him.  Rumor  even  had  noised  it 
about  that  at  last  he  had  gained  possession  of  the  compromis 
ing  letter  of  his  boast  and  that  he  would  read  it.  If  so, 
whom  would  it  compromise  beyond  Sir  Anthony  and  Ard 
more  of  Virginia?  Shaw,  maybe?  It  is  a  terrible  but 
none  the  less  absorbing  spectacle  to  see  a  valuable  reputation 
go  to  smash,  especially  when  it  happens  to  belong  to  another  ; 
just  as  when  we  see  a  frail  costly  vase  (of  our  neighbor's) 
tipped  from  the  mantel,  and  we  hold  our  breath  in  suspense 
while  it  threatens  to  evade  a  protective  hand  and  establish  a 
disastrous  acquaintanceship  with  the  floor. 

Even  Edward  Donovan  Butler  had  his  doubts,  and  al 
though  he  knew  very  well  what  Bruce  would  say  long  before 
he  said  it,  having  gone  over  the  outline  of  his  speech  with 
him,  still  he  was  fearful  lest  Bruce  try  to  lift  too  great  a 

180 


SOAPSUDS  AND  DESTINY 

weight  with  his  too  small  enginery,  and  lest  the  whole  ma 
chinery  give  way  with  a  crash  under  the  strain  and  hurl  its 
engineer  in  the  air.  If  he  only  had  the  Ardmore  epistle  to 
complete  the  chain  of  evidence  he  might  lift  himself  by  its 

links  to But  Butler  was  not  the  man  to  deal  with 

miraculous  "  ifs,"  and  he  bobbed  up  and  down  in  his  seat  so 
violently  that  it  seemed  only  to  serve  the  purpose  of  throwing 
him  out  of  it. 

Bruce  was  proclaiming  the  object  of  his  bill  in  terse,  vivid 
words.  His  full,  musical  voice,  out  of  which  the  shrill  note 
already  had  passed,  pulled  down  as  it  were  the  walls  of  shop 
and  factory  that  Congress  might  see  the  children  at  work. 
Shuttles  beat  back  and  forth  in  the  looms,  guided  by  thin, 
aching  fingers,  watched  by  sharp,  hungry  eyes,  made  sad 
by  cares  no  child  should  know.  The  wheels  turned  and 
whirled;  suddenly  the  piercing  scream  of  a  mangled  body 
echoed  through  the  big  House. 

So  did  Mammon  suffer  the  little  children  to  come  unto 
him! 


181 


CHAPTER   XIV 

THE    GODDESS   DESCENDS    FROM    THE    MACHINE 

MEANWHILE,  unconscious  of  what  was  going  on 
inside  of  the  Capitol,  Inez  stood  on  the  terrace  of 
that  marble  mount,  porticoed  with  bewildering 
rows  of  lofty  Corinthian  pillars.  Climbing  upward  slowly 
the  immensity  of  it  had  impressed  her ;  looking  downward  she 
received  aesthetic  enjoyment  from  the  graceful  retreat  of  the 
giant  stairway. 

She  was  about  to  step  inside  to  begin  a  search  for  Bruce 
when  spring  whispered  to  her  cajolingly  to  stay  awhile  out 
doors.  The  view  from  the  high  terrace  was  so  surpassingly, 
so  enchantingly  fair!  Pennsylvania  Avenue,  sweeping  out 
ward,  lost  itself  in  the  wavering  haze  of  the  distance.  The 
city  peeped  through  an  olive-green  canopy  of  tree  leaves 
freshly  opened.  A  purple  haze,  shot  through  with  russet 
gleams,  hung  discernible  as  smoke  over  the  zigzag  line  cut  in 
the  sky  by  the  Virginia  hills  and  the  heights  of  Georgetown. 
The  purple  softened  slowly  down  to  an  unobtrusive  gray 
where  it  embraced  the  Potomac's  fretful  waters.  The  Doric 
front  of  the  Lee  house  in  Arlington  looked  forth  invitingly 
from  its  bulging  brow  of  hill. 

She  observed,  glancing  downward  again,  the  number  of 
people  alighting  from  the  Pennsylvania  Avenue  cars  near 
the  Peace  Monument  and  hastening  into  the  basement  of  the 
House  side  of  the  Capitol  or  up  its  broad  tier  on  tier  of 

182 


THE   GODDESS  DESCENDS 

stairs.  She  suspected  nothing  of  the  unusual  until  she  over 
heard  a  man  passing  under  the  huge  pillared  portico,  say  to 
his  companion :  "  McAllister  is  surely  giving  them  hell ! 
God !  I  wish  I'd  been  there  when  his  speech  began !  " 

Spring's  fascination  was  gone  for  her,  and  detaching  her 
self  easily  from  it  she  rushed  inside  with  a  haste  that  left  all 
thought  of  dignity  behind.  Unmindful  of  elevators,  half  for 
getful  of  the  very  mission  on  which  she  had  come,  resolved  to 
hold  counsel  with  herself  afterwards,  she  tripped  up  the  stair 
way  to  the  floor  above.  In  front  of  the  plain  doors,  paneled 
with  glazed  glass,  that  opened  into  the  various  galleries,  she 
saw  long  cues  of  anxious  people  confronting  the  grim  door 
keepers  and  beseeching  admission. 

She  was  calling  her  precipitancy  to  account  for  rushing 
her  so  thoughtlessly  up  the  stairs  before  she  had  heard  the 
voice  of  common  sense  and  sent  in  the  letter  to  Bruce  by  a 
page,  and  she  turned  excitedly  to  retrace  her  steps  when  that 
very  excitement  inspired  her  with  a  seemingly  better  idea. 

She  hastened  into  the  Press  gallery  and  passed  the  rows 
of  clicking  telegraph  machines  when  a  doorkeeper  arising 
from  his  desk  stopped  her  with  due  Washington  politeness 
to  ask  the  nature  of  her  errand.  She  wished  to  see  Ed 
ward  Donovan  Butler  of  the  Chicago  Democrat',  and  in 
order  peremptorily  to  summon  him,  she  scribbled  on  one  of 
her  cards,  which  she  enclosed  in  an  envelope,  "  I  have  the 
Ardmore-WyckofE  letter."  Then  she  followed  this  guardian 
of  the  upper  regions,  who  differs  from  those  of  the  lower  in 
that  he  wishes  to  keep  people  out  instead  of  letting  them  in, 
until  they  reached  the  comfortable  waiting  room  where  he 
left  her  to  her  own  resources,  while  he  went  outside  to  look 
for  Butler  on  the  benches. 

She  poured  herself  a  glass  of  lemonade  from  the  silver 
pitcher  and  quaffed  it.  Her  mouth  was  parched  and  her 

183 


THE   RADICAL 

tongue  touched  lips  that  cried  for  moisture.  She  moved  as 
if  to  seat  herself  in  one  of  the  chairs  at  the  end  of  the  long 
table,  but,  in  obedience  to  the  inner  throb  of  restless  nerves, 
she  strode  up  and  down  the  deserted  apartment. 

Butler  appeared,  distractedly  crumpling  her  card  in  his 
hand,  looking  for  her  with  a  glance  that  betrayed  his  fear 
lest  the  whole  thing  prove  a  hoax.  She  placed  the  letter  in 
his  hand,  speechless. 

He  invoked  his  favorite  divinity  with  a  groan  more  de 
spairing  than  worshipful,  shot  out  of  the  doors,  tore  down 
the  corridor,  and  jumped  into  a  descending  elevator.  His 
movements  had  such  a  bewildering  and  kinematographic  con 
tinuity  that  the  jumping,  the  shooting,  and  the  tearing  seemed 
but  one  and  the  same  and  all  in  one. 

Inez  hurried  into  the  corridor  and  finding  herself  an 
atom  in  a  crowd  again,  she  remembered  joyfully  that  her 
purse  contained  a  ticket  admitting  her  to  one  of  the  exclusive 
galleries  where  she  could  detach  herself  from  the  excluded 
mass  and  become  a  segregated  and  privileged  entity.  But 
here  another  waiting  line  frowned  on  her  impatience;  the 
suave  keeper  of  the  gates  expressed  his  regret  at  the  lack  of 
an  empty  seat.  Every  single  nerve  at  war  with  the  calmness 
she  wished  to  maintain  now  of  all  times,  she  stood  distraught, 
perturbed,  knowing  not  what  to  do  nor  where  to  turn,  when 
the  voluptuous  contour  of  the  Countess  Villari,  leaning  on 
the  arm  of  the  Polish  minister,  caught  her  eager  glance  from 
far  down  the  corridor. 

The  Count  paused  in  front  of  the  Diplomatic  gallery  to 
draw  his  ticket  of  admission  from  his  purse.  "  Wait  for 
me!"  Inez's  extremity  all  but  prompted  her  to  call  aloud, 
when  the  door  swung  half  open  and  the  Countess  disappeared 
within.  The  taller  figure  of  the  minister  was  about  to  fol 
low  suit  when  Inez's  gloved  finger  was  laid  pleadingly  on  the 

184 


THE  GODDESS   DESCENDS 

sleeve  of  his  frock  coat.  He  looked  down  with  Slavonic 
imperturbability  on  this  unseemly  exhibit  of  emotion  and  his 
monocle  only  expressed  his  deprecation  of  it  when  she  had 
turned  her  back  in  order  to  precede  him  inside  the  gallery. 

There  were  three  vacant  seats  in  the  second  row  of  the 
narrow  sloping  gallery  and  they  moved  to  take  possession  of 
them.  Across  the  aisle  from  Inez,  Georgia  Fiske  Ten  Eyck 
was  seated  beside  a  young  member  of  the  British  embassy. 
She  turned  as  if  an  inner  shock  rather  than  any  outward  con 
fusion  had  announced  Inez's  presence  and  she  detached  her 
self  from  Bruce's  speech  long  enough  to  beam  a  welcome 
on  the  new  arrivals. 

Inez  gazed  around  the  length  of  the  full  galleries  that 
lifted  their  gaping  crowds  toward  the  ceiling.  Even  the 
usually  empty  Executive  gallery  numbered  its  exalted  occu 
pants.  Then  her  eyes,  trying  to  establish  her  relation  to 
this  theatric  environment,  turned  to  the  floor  below,  wan 
dering  from  the  eagle  that  flapped  protective  wings  over  the 
ironical  Fiske  to  the  concentric  circles  of  mahogany  desks, 
the  radiating  aisles  of  which  curved  toward  completion  on 
either  side  of  the  Speaker's  imposing  marble  desk.  To  Inez 
it  seemed  like  a  huge  web  with  all  its  cross  threads  alive  and 
freighted  with  human  beings. 

Through  the  glass-paneled  ceiling,  set  in  its  iron  frame, 
the  light  fell  with  a  chiaroscuro  effect  on  Bruce,  throwing 
his  rail-like  figure  and  his  swarthy,  coarse-featured  face  into 
a  relief  that  tested  its  quality  as  rigorously  as  would  a  search 
light  itself.  She  was  struck  by  its  strength.  It  appealed  to 
her  over  that  separating  abyss  as  something  wherein  she 
might  find  succor  in  an  hour  of  her  own  weakness. 

Then  his  voice  claimed  her — the  same  voice  that  had  com 
pelled  her  admiration  and  carried  her  whither  it  listed  years 
ago  in  that  little  frowzy  hall  in  Chicago.  Eagerly  her  atten- 
13  185 


THE   RADICAL 

tion  flew  to  him  and  she  rode  out  on  the  crest  of  one  smooth- 
flowing  sentence  to  catch  the  beginning  of  the  next. 

His  rich,  full,  and  golden  voice  rolled  on  and  on,  pouring 
and  pouring  out  its  inexhaustible  music.  He  was  paying  his 
respects  to  commerce.  Yesterday  Baal  and  Moloch  were  de 
manding  black  slaves  for  a  sacrifice  at  their  altars.  The  day 
before  it  had  been  white  slaves.  Now  their  priests  were 
calling  for  the  little  children.  The  ritual  changed  from  age 
to  age;  the  religion  never!  Wherein  lay  the  cure?  In  the 
destruction  of  Baal  and  Moloch! 

Commerce  was  the  slave  driver,  whip  in  hand,  that  wras 
forcing  the  children  to  become  beasts  of  burden  to  carry  loads 
that  rightly  considered  should  be  distributed  equally  among 
all  the  elders  of  the  land.  Did  they  question  the  sorry  role 
that  commerce  was  assuming  now?  Why  then  were  the 
great  interests  opposed  to  the  bill?  There  was  that  famous 
letter  written  by  Anthony  WyckofE  forbidding  it  to  pass  be 
yond  the  door  of  its  proper  committee. 

Laughter  silenced  him  boisterously. 

The  interruption  recalled  Inez  to  herself  and  her 
thoughts  moved  back  to  where  they  were  when  he  had 
claimed  them.  Where  was  the  letter  at  this  moment?  Did 
he  have  it?  Was  it  his  invincible  weapon  now  to  batter  his 
way  to  success  through  the  ranks  of  the  enemy?  Impatience 
throbbed  like  fever  in  her  veins  and  she  thought  of  arising 
to  seek  out  Butler  and  inquire.  Then  gazing  restlessly 
around  she  caught  sight  of  Butler  on  the  raised  white 
benches  of  the  Press  gallery  and  noticed  his  sharp  eyes  fas 
tened  as  if  in  eager  search  on  the  floor  below.  In  search 
of  what?  she  asked,  pressing  her  gloved  hands  against  her 
hot  cheeks. 

His  voice  was  rolling  its  deep  tones  through  the  silence 
again.  The  occasion  deserved  laughter  for  its  ruling  spirit, 

186 


THE  GODDESS   DESCENDS 

he  said.  There  was  a  humorous  side  to  that  now  celebrated 
epistle,  which  had  been  written  in  an  ink  of  a  peculiar  al 
chemy  to  be  made  visible  or  invisible  as  the  convenience  of 
its  writer  should  determine. 

Her  thoughts  divided  into  two  currents,  one  carrying  to 
ward  the  illuminated  chambers  of  her  brain  the  words  of 
Bruce,  the  other  bearing  forward  the  visual  images  she  re 
ceived  from  the  forlorn  Butler,  his  eyes  on  the  floor,  bobbing 
up  and  down  on  his  seat.  And  now  these  two  currents 
seemed  to  merge  and  now  to  separate,  and  again  to  be  racing 
in  opposite  directions.  Usually  the  most  possessed  of  women, 
she  was  utterly  distracted.  Her  head  was  in  a  whirl. 

Then  all  at  once  she  saw  on  the  floor  of  the  House  a 
little  page,  with  a  letter  in  his  hand;  he  stood  at  Bruce's 
back,  trying  with  all  the  wiles  known  to  embarrassed  youth 
to  attract  the  attention  of  the  orator  whose  wisdom  and 
eloquence  intimidated  him.  So,  even  as  we  write,  may  good 
fortune  stand  with  its  message  behind  the  back  of  him  who 
reads!  "  Turn,  turn!  "  she  was  tortured  by  the  mad  desire 
to  call  out  to  him.  And  Inez  obliged  to  restrain  Inez,  in 
voluntarily  clapped  a  warning  hand  over  her  mouth. 

Unmindful  of  this  Ganymede,  cloud  hidden,  who  stood 
at  his  elbow  with  Venus's  message,  Bruce  spoke  on.  His  ve 
racity,  he  said,  had  been  questioned,  but  he  wished  to  repeat 
that  the  contents  of  the  Ardmore  letter  were  such  as  he  had 
charged.  Let  those  who  knew  the  truth  deny  if  they  dared 
that  the  original  letter  had  been  dropped  on  the  floor  of  a 
certain  Washington  studio !  The  door  of  the  studio  had  been 
almost  battered  down  by  the  men  and  women,  partisans  of 
his  opponents,  in  their  mad  endeavor  to  recover  the  lost  treas 
ure.  The  artist  himself,  his  honor  challenged,  had  been 
offered  a  Venetian  consulship,  in  return  for  that  incrimi 
nating  bit  of  paper. 

187 


THE  RADICAL 

Ommaney  rose  to  his  feet.  Him  the  mighty  Fiske  gav- 
eled  down. 

The  golden  Georgia's  face  was  aflame.  Hers  was  the 
sinking  sensation,  each  throbbing  nerve  screaming  plaintively 
for  something  whereto  it  might  cling.  What  if  in  the  heat 
and  fire  of  this  controversy  that  veil  be  destroyed  behind 
which  her  identity  was  hidden  and  she  be  dragged  forth, 
shorn  of  honor,  to  her  father's  view  ? 

Lifting  her  eyes  as  if  the  mere  looking  beyond  herself 
would  take  her  outside  of  herself,  Georgia's  glance  fell  on 
Inez,  and  then  her  aroused  curiosity  subtracted  more  and  more 
from  the  torture  of  her  suspense.  Inez's  face,  her  move 
ments,  her  muscles  held  at  tension  as  if  to  repress  her  inward 
agony  struggling  for  expression,  her  unconscious  gestures 
carried  on  a  pantomime  that  the  quick-witted  Georgia  was 
able  to  translate  into  words.  She  saw  all  and  guessed  much. 

Bruce's  voice  sank  to  a  minor  key;  humor  was  the  instru 
ment  that  accompanied  him.  His  situation  in  the  committee 
room  when  he  had  come  prepared  to  give  in  evidence  one  let 
ter  and  had  been  obliged  to  hear  the  reading  of  quite  another, 
reminded  him  of  the  negro  who,  satisfied  with  the  catch  of  a 
seven-pound  bullhead,  went  to  sleep  on  his  laurels.  A  less 
favored  brother  chancing  along  replaced  the  bullhead  with 
a  tiny  perch.  When  the  darky,  awakening,  beheld  the  trans 
formation  he  exclaimed,  "  Ef  dat  bullhead  had  only  shrunk 
I'd  serspect  de  rum  what  I  drunk,  but  when  it  done  change 
entirely  I  naturally  serspect  Andrew  Jackson  Jefferson  ben 
fishing  on  dis  pier,  too." 

"  Mr.  Speaker,  if  the  gentleman  from  Illinois  wishes  to 
insinuate — "  Shaw  was  on  his  feet  waving  a  denunciatory 
arm,  his  cultivated  taste  inimical  to  humor  of  this  crude 
slapstick  sort. 

Bing!  bang!  "  The  gentleman  from  Pennsylvania  is  out 
188 


THE  GODDESS   DESCENDS 

of  order;  he  will  be  seated,"  drawled  Fiske,  clasping  the 
gavel  amatively. 

"  This  is  tyranny,  Mr.  Speaker,  I  wish  to  protest." 

"  The  gentleman  from  Pennsylvania  protests  too  much. 
Unlike  the  gentleman  from  Illinois,  who  pins  his  faith  to 
what  he  calls  the  bigger  democracy,  the  chair  believes  that 
the  House  is  in  need  of  a  benevolent  despot.  The  gentleman 
will  be  seated !  " 

Laughter  followed  in  the  wake  of  the  Speaker's  ironical 
drawl,  but  the  grim  Fiske  gaveled  it  into  silence.  And  it 
was  during  this  grizzly  episode  when  Fiske's  guillotinelike 
gavel  was  separating  Shaw's  voice  from  his  body  that  Bruce 
felt  the  hand  of  destiny  pluck  with  the  insistence  of  despair 
at  his  coat.  He  turned  and  relieved  his  beardless  and 
fatigued  messenger  of  his  message. 

In  the  gallery,  Inez,  breathing  easier,  released  a  wrenched 
thumb  from  a  torturing  fist.  To  Ganymede  vanishing 
heavenward  she  sent  an  unvoiced  thankfulness  from  her 
heart's  depths.  Butler  sank  back  for  a  moment's  restoration 
before  he  played  again  at  battledore  and  shuttlecock  with 
the  bench.  Georgia  Fiske  Ten  Eyck's  curiosity  merely 
joined  forces  with  the  suspense  against  which  it  had  warred 
before.  The  minutes  harrowed  her. 

Meanwhile,  as  the  laughter  ebbed  slowly  away  into 
fainter  and  fainter  echoes,  Bruce's  mind  had  made  a  conquest 
of  the  letter.  He  was  so  utterly  occupied  in  bending  its 
words  to  his  purpose  that  he  gave  to  the  explanation  of  its 
appearance  only  the  first  flash  of  thought  that  surprise  waved 
like  a  light  across  his  mind. 

He  returned  to  his  anecdote  of  the  fishes,  usurping  the 
author's  right  to  lay  a  trifling  and  sacrilegious  hand  on  his 
own  masterpiece.  He  was  aware  of  the  wily  approach  of 
the  fisherman  and  he  had  pretended  somnolence  merely  in 


THE   RADICAL  . 

order  the  better  to  trip  up  the  thief  and  send  him,  flying  head 
over  heels,  into  deep  water.  Behold — proof  of  his  wakeful- 
ness — the  very  original  letter!  His  voice  poured  forth  all 
the  volume  of  sound  in  its  control,  and  that  diminutive  piece 
of  paper — such  were  the  dimensions  that  drama  lent  it — 
waved  triumphant,  fold  on  fold,  flaglike,  in  the  vast  hall. 

Consternation,  retreating  sullenly  before  it,  leaped  from 
desk  to  desk.  There  was  in  the  oblique  eyes  of  Sydney  P. 
Shaw  a  glint  such  as  one  may  chance  to  see  in  a  watchdog's 
when  brought  to  bay  at  night.  The  resourceful  Ommaney 
fell  prone,  stripped  of  expedient,  his  inventiveness  reduced  to 
formulating  uncomplimentary  names  for  the  more  immediate 
ancestors  of  Bruce  McAllister.  Fiske,  impartial  as  time, 
with  history's  ironical  disinterestedness,  held  a  threatening 
gavel  aloft  to  recommend  his  own  attitude  to  his  subjects. 

And  just  as  Georgia  Fiske  Ten  Eyck's  attention  was 
divided  between  watching  the  expression  that  flitted  across 
the  face  of  Inez  Hammersmith  and  the  understanding  of 
Bruce's  words,  so  was  her  heart  divided  between  sorrow  for 
Shaw  and  joy  for  her  father;  since  she  knew  now,  foreshad 
owing  Anthony's  keen  displeasure,  that  Sydney's  chances  for 
the  presidency  were  diminished  and  her  father's  chances  in 
creased.  She  realized  too,  for  the  first  time  in  full  measure, 
the  tragedy  of  a  position  that  inevitably  would  involve  her 
deeper  and  deeper  in  its  awful  toils.  She  divined  now  that 
she  could  not  be  false  to  one  of  the  two  men  she  loved  best 
of  all  men  without  being  false  to  the  other. 

Bruce  was  reading  Sir  Anthony's  original  letter  to  Ard- 
more,  interspersing  notes  and  comments  of  his  own  with  such 
wanton  fecundity  that  the  parent  text  seemed  in  danger  of 
going  unheard  amid  the  hilarious  clamor  of  the  offspring 
called  into  being  by  it.  The  original  letter,  he  remarked, 
had  been  inspired  by  Anthony's  fear  lest  the  country  and 

190 


THE   GODDESS  DESCENDS 

Congress  refuse  to  exploit  the  child,  and  the  second  had  been 
prompted  by  Anthony's  fear  that  he  be  exploited  by  Congress 
and  the  country.  The  national  university  itself  was,  of 
course,  an  afterthought,  designed  to  make  Bruce  McAllister 
ridiculous  and  to  inveigle  the  country  into  believing  that  it 
was  Sir  Anthony's  intention  to  educate  the  mind  of  the  youth 
and  not  destroy  the  body  of  the  child. 

When  his  audience  thought  that  the  climax  had  come  and 
interest  would  slip  down  on  the  receding  line  of  the  triangle, 
Bruce  sent  one  sensation  in  pursuit  of  another.  He  was  far 
from  wishing  to  intimate  that  votes  against  the  Anti-Child  La 
bor  bill  had  been  purchased  by  gifts  of  stock  in  the  Trans 
oceanic,  but  he  had  in  his  pocket  a  list  of  names  that  might 
show,  after  the  vote  on  his  bill  was  taken,  that  there  was  a 
striking  relationship  between  the  enemies  of  the  one  and  the 
recipients  of  the  other.  The  two  rosters  might  make  inter 
esting  reading  when  published  for  American  students  of  com 
parative  perfidy. 

Even  Ommaney  and  Shaw,  both  of  whom  knew  that  the 
telltale  list  of  Bruce's  threat  had  been  recaptured  and  de 
stroyed,  suffered  for  a  second  from  as  great  a  stampede  of 
their  wits  as  the  more  enlightened  members  of  the  House. 
They  had  seen  the  man  perform  one  miracle,  and  fear  draw 
ing  the  wool  over  the  eyes  of  logic,  told  them  there  was  no 
reason  why  he  could  not  work  as  many  as  he  chose.  Then 
they  recovered  from  the  panic  into  which  he  had  thrown 
them  momentarily  and  Ommaney  jumped  to  his  feet  simul 
taneously  with  Shaw  shouting: 

"  Mr.  Speaker,  we  challenge  the  gentleman  from  Illinois 
to  produce  such  a  list." 

The  bold  skeptic  shall  not  lack  followers  among  those 
who  would  rather  doubt  than  believe,  and  when  faith  begins 
to  slacken  let  the  worker  of  miracles  rest  satisfied  with  a 

191 


THE    RADICAL 

single  performance  and  retreat,  refusing  to  bring  to  pass  an 
other. 

The  spirit  of  insurrection  was  agog,  a  hissing  sound,  slow 
and  sibilant,  arose,  gradually  increasing  higher  and  higher  in 
fury  and  volume  until  it  all  but  drowned  out  the  powerful 
voice  of  Bruce,  heard  through  it,  if  we  may  liken  sound  to 
sight,  as  the  rays  of  a  candlelight  seen  through  a  mist.  Fiske 
said  afterwards  he  could  feel  the  atmosphere  become  sur 
charged  with  rebellion  and  anger,  and  the  spirit  of  it  beat 
like  rain  against  his  marble  desk. 

The  sergeant-at-arms  ran  forward  with  his  mace;  Shaw 
and  Ommaney  sank  protesting  but  unconquered  in  their  seats. 
Fiske's  gavel  thundered  its  Bing!  bang!  through  the  vast 
hall.  The  more  timid  capitulated;  the  braver,  so  few  as  to 
be  comparatively  insignificant,  were  forced  to  follow  suit. 
Down  came  Fiske's  hammer — the  final  clap  to  clear  the  ter 
rorized  field — and  his  voice  droned  and  drawled : 

"  The  House  is  a  deliberative  body,  or  it  was  a  deliber 
ative  body  before  it  became  a  mob.  It  will,  therefore,  come 
to  order !  The  hissing  of  geese  once  saved  an  ancient  capital 
from  the  destruction  of  its  enemies;  the  members  need  not 
take  it  upon  themselves  out  of  emulation  to  perform  that 
function  now  for  our  modern  Capitol,  since  it  is  guarded 
over  by  a  sergeant-at-arms  and  police." 

Laughter  started;  his  thunder,  crashing  ominously,  si 
lenced  it.  A  handkerchief,  fluttering  softly  from  the  gallery 
above  to  the  thick  carpeted  floor  below,  would  have  seemed 
an  intruder.  The  spirit  of  insurrection  was  crushed  and 
it  crept  away  bruised  and  broken-spirited  from  the  marble 
throne  of  the  terrible  Thor,  who  stood  there  subtly  contem 
plative,  leaning  on  the  symbol  of  his  indisputable  authority. 


192 


CHAPTER   XV 

THE    FRUITS   OF   VICTORY 

IT  was  a  wonderful  oratorical  effort !  Wonderful ! " 
whispered  Georgia  Fiske  Ten  Eyck  across  the  aisle  to 
Inez  Hammersmith  when  Bruce  seated  himself  amid  a 
sort  of  curtained  stillness.  Georgia's  face  beamed  as  with 
a  sincere  joy  at  the  hero's  vindication  of  himself.  Inez,  nod 
ding,  observed  her  friend's  pallor,  striking  when  thrown  into 
contrast  with  her  mass  of  bright,  golden  hair,  calling  into 
sharper  relief  by  its  impartial  absence  of  color,  the  strong 
features  of  the  large  face.  She  was  about  to  reply,  grasping 
her  enthusiasm  with  a  firm  hand,  when  the  applause  broke 
faint  at  first,  then  with  a  stormlike  abandon. 

The  honest  provoked  it;  then  the  dishonest  joined  in  as 
if  to  save  their  reputations  by  calling  attention  to  the  com 
pany  they  kept,  finally  freeing  themselves  as  if  by  the  use  of 
intoxicants  from  what  they  were  and  becoming  what  they 
wanted  to  be.  Their  ardor  led  at  last  what  it  had  followed 
docilely  at  first.  His  unmasked  batteries  had  broken  down 
party  walls  and  the  Republicans  waxed  as  enthusiastic  as  the 
Democrats.  Primal  emotions,  not  the  subtle  distinctions  of 
a  too  complex  civilization,  sat  as  dictator  over  the  hour. 
Fiske  pounded  for  order,  but  his  heart  not  being  in  his  work 
he  pounded  in  vain.  Our  hero,  shaking  hands,  grinning 
broadly,  acknowledging  congratulations,  accepted  his  triumph 
with  a  modesty  that  he  himself  might  have  confessed  was 

193 


THE  RADICAL 

more  becoming  than  sincere.  He  was  back  on  his  pedestal, 
folly  dethroned,  looking  loftily  down  on  an  admiring  world 
that  had  bespattered  him  with  ridicule  when  he  fell. 

Quiet  was  regnant  once  more;  the  Neptunal  gavel  con 
trolled  at  least  the  waves  of  sound.  A  Republican  leader 
attacked  Bruce's  bill,  hurling  himself  against  its  weaknesses — • 
sentimentalism,  sensationalism,  injury  to  business  and  uncon 
stitutionally.  The  letter,  the  hints  at  bribery,  and  all  that 
sort  of  thing  were  inconsequential,  meretricious.  He  thrust 
them  aside  disdainfully.  The  bill  itself  and  only  the  bill 
merited  the  close  consideration  of  the  House.  His  repeated 
admonition  that  a  vote  in  the  negative  might  prove  dishon 
esty  was  disregarded.  The  suspicion  of  graft  was  too  strong 
to  permit  the  taking  of  chances.  In  the  coming  fall  election 
it  would  be  much  easier  to  explain  why  they  had  voted  for 
the  bill  than  why  they  had  tried  to  defeat  it.  The  age  is 
hard  on  innocence !  For  the  guiltless  to  lose  their  reputation 
is  lamentable ;  to  lose  their  reputation  and  their  Transoceanic 
stock  at  one  fell  swoop  lies  beyond  the  depth  of  sorrowing 
tears  to  express.  But  since  the  Anti-Child  Labor  bill  and  the 
Transoceanic  Ship  Subsidy  bill  are  mortal  and  irreconcilable 
enemies,  to  receive  tribute  from  the  latter  is  to  acknowledge 
one's  unfitness  to  enter  the  temple  of  the  former. 

McAllister  is  manning  the  lifeboat,  named  in  letters  of 
electric  effulgence  "Anti-Child  Labor  Bill."  Hasten  to 
climb  aboard  its  protective  side  or  else  be  engulfed  by  the 
swirling  waters  of  Public  Opinion !  Save  himself  who  can ! 
Jettison  your  Ship  Subsidy  stock  lest  it  sink  with  you  and  the 
omnivorous  sea  scavengers  make  food  of  both !  And  let  the 
pure  of  heart  take  comfort  while  the  gilded  and  decorated 
paper  sinks! — the  Ship  Subsidy  bill  will  go  down  in  defeat 
soon  and  its  stock  be  worthless  as  the  buried  hulks  it  is 
sent  to  join. 

194 


THE   FRUITS   OF  VICTORY 

Thus  do  two  hundred  and  sixty-five  redoubtable  sons 
of  the  Republic  pull  laborious  oars  to  send  the  McAllister 
bill  on  the  way  toward  Enrolment  peak  and  land  it  safely 
into  Engrossing  harbor.  Never  did  honest  sailors,  conscience 
free,  welcome  more  heartily  the  oncoming  night  and  its 
promise  of  sweet  rest. 

Clambering  ashore,  we  drop  our  marine  metaphor.  Al 
ready  the  lateness  of  the  hour  has  driven  the  less  enthusiastic 
from  the  galleries,  and  when  Fiske's  hammer  clashed  against 
the  marble  of  his  desk  for  the  last  time  the  dusk  was  unroll 
ing  its  dark  curtain,  and  there  was  something  of  a  rush  for 
the  aisles,  the  corridors,  and  the  elevators.  The  Count  Vil- 
lari,  his  wife  and  his  monocle,  left  when  they  began  to  be 
bored,  which  was  over  an  hour  ago,  murmuring  to  them 
selves  "  Oh,  these  Americans !  " 

Inez  passed  out  with  Georgia  and  her  escort,  the  stalwart 
young  Englishman,  from  the  embassy.  Being  an  Englishman, 
who  shall  say  from  his  expression  whether  he  was  bored  or 
not  bored,  and  being  an  Englishman  from  the  embassy,  who 
shall  have  insolence  enough  to  ask?  Georgia's  arm  slipped 
with  a  clamorous  affection  around  Inez's  waist,  declaring  to 
herself  as  she  did  so  that  in  men  only  would  she  believe  here 
after!  Inez  had  betrayed  her.  The  letter  had  been  in  her 
possession  since  the  day  of  its  loss,  and  she  had  merely  awaited 
the  dramatic  moment  to  give  it  to  her  lover.  The  artist, 
whose  candor  she  had  challenged  so  persistently,  had  spoken 
the  truth.  So  writh  a  sort  of  shock  to  her  protesting  femi 
ninity  did  Georgia  accept  the  prejudice  against  her  sex,  and 
so  may  a  woman's  arm  slip  affectionately  around  the  waist 
of  another  and  be  miles  removed  from  expressing  what  its 
owner  feels. 

Inez  left  Georgia  awaiting  the  overcrowded  elevators 
that  came  slowly  up  as  if  from  the  bowels  of  the  earth,  in 

195 


THE   RADICAL 

charge  of  England  and  her  embassy  while  she  moved  on  in 
the  direction  of  the  east  stairway,  past  the  uninspiring  row  of 
uninspired  portraits  and  the  huge  canvas  over  the  first  landing 
that  depicts  Lincoln  in  the  act  of  reading  his  Emancipation 
Proclamation  to  his  Cabinet.  In  this  painting  the  critical 
R.  R.  might  have  found  much  to  admire — in  its  size.  But 
lucky  the  woman  so  richly  endowed  spiritually  that  she  need 
but  turn  her  eyes  inward,  away  from  walls  made  dismal  by 
art's  failures,  and  say:  "  Here  is  beauty  sufficient  unto  itself!  " 
And  Inez,  smiling,  happy  over  the  wonders  her  dazzling 
diplomacy  had  brought  to  pass,  tripped  along,  all  absorbed 
in  her  own  wealth  of  thought.  Whither  her  disregard  of 
her  surroundings  would  have  led  her,  if  a  voice  had  not  made 
her  look  without,  we  know  not. 

"  So  there  you  are!  I  was  just  coming  up  in  search  of 
you !  How  lucky !  " 

It  was  Bruce  McAllister,  hat  in  hand,  who  stood  before 
her,  his  dark  face  wearing  that  half  gratified,  half  startled 
expression  of  one  suddenly  stumbling  on  the  object  of  one's 
search.  Inez  saw  Butler's  spruce,  little  form  turn  suddenly 
and  disappear  downstairs. 

"  The  play  is  done.  Now  what  does  the  impartial  critic 
say?  "  he  asked,  reverting  to  a  former  conversation.  He  paid 
her  the  compliment,  in  the  full  flush  of  his  glory,  of  remem 
bering. 

"  You  must  not  ask  my  opinion.  It  cannot  be  impartial 
since  I  left  the  critic's  chair  to  take  so  unexpected  a  part  on 
the  stage." 

How  for  an  adept  man  her  answer  throws  wi'de  open 
the  gates  of  opportunity!  And  Bruce,  before  they  are  shut, 
enters  with :  "  Ordinarily  one  would  regret  the  loss  of  a  fine 
critic,  but  when  a  great  critic  is  lost  to  merely  give  a  still 
greater  actor  a  place  on  the  stage  the  world  is  the  gainer; 


THE   FRCITS   OF  VICTORY 

and  that  small  part  of  the  world  known  as  Bruce  McAllister 
was  saved  from  ruin  by  it." 

"  Please  say  no  more  about  it!  " 

"  I  should  be  ungrateful  if  I  didn't." 

Her  face  grew  firm  and  serious.  She  assumed  again  the 
impersonal  attitude.  It  was  as  if  she  were  fearful  that  the 
part  she  had  played  in  his  victory  might  give  him  the  right 
to  presume  the  existence  of  a  greater  affection  than  for  rea 
sons  of  her  own  she  wished  him  to  discover.  On  the  other 
hand,  he  was  prone  to  consider  the  associations  made  by  that 
letter  as  a  sort  of  bridge  constructed  by  Venus's  minions  with 
infinite  pains,  over  which  he  might  cross  to  the  land  of 
heart's  desire.  He  had  rushed  toward  her,  as  it  were,  with 
open  arms,  and  while  he  was  still  suffering  from  the  surprise 
and  humiliation  of  the  repulse,  he  did  not  intend  to  surrender 
a  position  so  strategic  without  a  struggle. 

"  May  I  ask  how  you  came  by  the  letter,  anyway?  My 
curiosity  gnaws ;  relieve  its  pains ! "  Footsteps  echoed 
through  the  corridors  of  belated  visitors,  of  congressmen  and 
employees  hastening  homeward. 

She  smiled  enigmatically,  inwardly  pleased  at  the  secret 
she  controlled. 

"You  mean  it  is  to  remain  of  the  mysteries?  " 

"  Always,"  she  answered.  "  It  is  late ;  I  must  go  now." 
It  was  a  violent  turning  of  the  course  of  conversation. 

"  May  I  go  with  you  ?  " 

"  As  far  as  the  cars,  if  you  will  let  drop  the  subject  of  the 
letter." 

He  lapsed  into  a  respectful  but  rebellious  obedience,  won 
dering  like  an  enemy  during  truce  how  he  might  best  open 
warfare  again.  They  walked  outside,  pausing  for  a  moment 
on  the  terrace.  In  the  lowering  dusk,  tinted  with  the  vivid 
green  of  tree  tops,  here  and  there  streaked  with  the  gold 

197 


THE   RADICAL 

of  a  light  prematurely  lit,  Washington,  with  its  streets 
radiating  out  from  the  massive  Capitol  as  from  a  huge  hub, 
lay  like  a  great  wheel  at  rest,  wearied  from  the  work  of 
the  day. 

"  It  would  seem  to  me  to  be  the  worst  kind  of  ingratitude 
if  I  should  leave  without  firmly  establishing  my  thankful 
ness." 

She  answered  him  not,  thinking  to  herself,  "  I  lingered 
here  a  while  ago,  his  fate  in  my  hands,  playing  with  it."  He 
stood  pondering  over  the  reason  why  she  appeared  so  care 
less  of  his  thanks  when  she  evidently  had  gone  to  such  infinite 
pains  to  win  them.  Coquetry  seemed  too  small  an  explana 
tion  for  so  true  a  woman  and  he  scorned  it.  The  thought 
gave  him  the  boldness  to  say: 

"  After  all,  you  must  have  thought  a  good  deal  of  me  to 
have  secured  that  letter  and  put  it  into  my  hands !  " 

"  Isn't  the  craving  for  excitement  an  adequate  explana 
tion?" 

"  Not  at  all.  If  mere  excitement  were  your  purpose,  you 
could  have  gained  more  of  it  by  giving  the  letter  to  Shaw." 

"  But  motives  of  honesty  prompted  me ;  the  letter  really 
belonged  to  you." 

"  Only  because  you  thought  so.  You  made  honor  and 
honesty  a  matter  of  sentiment.  So  if  you  insist  I  can  only 
feel  my  gratitude  and  leave  it  unexpressed." 

Again,  as  if  unrelenting,  as  if  decided  to  spurn  instead  of 
to  accept  the  tribute  he  offered,  she  remained  silent.  In  the 
shadow  of  the  Peace  Monument  they  waited  for  the  car; 
she  spoke  of  it  in  terms  that  would  not  have  flattered  its 
sculptor  had  he  been  there  to  have  heard  her.  "  I  shall  be 
where  there  is  statuary  soon,"  she  said,  with  assumed  care 
lessness. 

"  Do  you  mean  that  you  are  to  leave  here?  "     His  dark, 


THE   FRUITS   OF   VICTORY 

coarse-featured  face  peered  at  her  wistfully.  The  car 
rounded  the  curve. 

"  At  the  end  of  the  month,  for  Paris,"  she  answered. 

"To  return  to  Washington?" 

"  It  depends  on  what  my  father  and  mother  determine." 
She  sought  shelter  in  the  equivocation. 

"  And  your  own  personal  desires?  " 

"  Here  comes  my  car."  She  shook  hands  with  him  and 
lightly  mounted  the  halting  car,  and  then  rapidly  rolled  out 
of  his  sight. 

Late  that  night  Butler,  calling  on  Bruce  to  talk  over  at 
length  with  him  the  eventful  proceedings  of  that  day, 
found  the  hero  in  his  den  at  work  on  a  document  of  inter 
minable  length.  His  unlit  pipe  was  in  his  mouth,  the  feet 
of  his  long  legs  were  twisted  around  the  chair,  his  chest  and 
head  were  bent  far  over  the  paper.  Every  once  in  a  while 
Butler  turned  to  look  at  the  page  after  page  of  manuscript 
that  Bruce  continued  to  pile  on  his  cluttered  table. 

"  Writing  your  will,  Bruce?  "  he  asked  finally. 

Bruce  unhooked  his  feet  slowly,  tipped  his  chair  back 
and  looked  at  the  ceiling  studiously,  while  the  blue  died  out 
of  the  irises  of  his  eyes.  "  No,  Ed,"  he  answered  mournfully, 
"  I  could  write  that  on  the  end  of  my  thumb." 

"  Bruce,  be  candid;  is  it  a  woman  troubling  you?  " 

"  Yes,  it  is,  Ed,"  he  answered  forlornly.  He  rose  and 
walked  up  and  down  the  compact  room  in  his  short,  jerky 
steps ;  then  he  shrilled,  his  face  a  sight  to  behold :  "  Ed,  I'm 
in  love  with  the  most  beautiful  and  the  most  heartless  woman 
on  earth.  A  coquette,  a " 

Strange,  incomprehensible,  buried  beyond  his  or  our  own 
efforts  to  solve  it,  is  the  motive  that  inspired  him  to  sully  his 
lips  with  that  word,  above  all  to  apply  it  to  the  woman  he 
acknowledged  to  be  worthy  of  his  love.  Butler  found  it 

199 


THE  RADICAL 

hard  work  to  believe  his  ears.  He  looked  at  Bruce  as  if 
fearing  the  man  had  gone  mad,  and  when  he  was  about  to 
express  himself  in  unminced  terms,  there  sat  Bruce  with 
his  swarthy  face  buried  in  his  large  hands,  the  warm  tears 
trickling  down  his  cheeks. 

"  Tell  me  about  it,  Bruce,"  said  Butler,  touched  now 
somehow  to  the  core  of  him. 

But  not  one  word  could  Butler  get  out  of  him,  and  not 
one  word  more  could  Bruce  get  out  of  himself,  try  as  they 
both  did  to  the  utmost  of  their  respective  abilities. 

Bruce  shook  his  head  firmly  and  proceeded  to  tear  into 
shreds  the  sheets  on  which  he  had  wasted  such  effort.  They 
formed  a  long  and  rambling  declaration  of  his  love  for  Inez, 
a  peculiar  epistle — half  businesslike,  stating  all  the  "  ands  " 
and  the  "  buts,"  and  half  headlong  and  passionate;  and  he 
knew  very  well  before  he  penned  a  word  of  it  that  no  eye  but 
his  own  would  ever  get  a  glimpse  of  its  contents. 

"  Ed,"  he  grinned  suddenly,  while  going  on  with  his  work 
of  destruction,  "  it's  more  or  less  human  to  count  your  chick 
ens  before  they  hatch ;  but  it's  kind  of  inhuman,  I  guess,  to 
smash  your  good  eggs  for  fear  they  won't  chick." 


200 


BOOK  THREE 


14 


CHAPTER   I 

A   WHITE   NIGHT 

YOUR  people,  McAllister,  are  just  as  well  off  outside 
where  they  are — in  the  first  place  it's  an  extremely 
mild  March  evening,  and  in  the  second  place  if  they 
got  in  here  they  would  only  be  disillusioned,  anyway."     So, 
pointing  to  the  crowd  gathered  around  the  high  iron  fences 
outside,  did  the  ironical  Fiske  speak  to  Bruce  McAllister 
in  the  parlors  of  the  Polish  embassy. 

They  stood  in  the  bay  window,  a  little  removed  from  a 
choice  assembly,  gathered,  so  to  say,  by  eliminating  all  but  the 
most  distinguished  people  in  Washington  and  tightening  the 
zone  of  welcome  until  it  embraced  only  the  elect.  The  re 
sult,  of  course,  was  brilliancy;  an  effulgence  of  the  kind  made 
where  stars  of  equal  magnitude  sing  together,  and  where  the 
radiance  of  the  social  heavens  would  have  been  diminished 
if  any  one  single  planet  had  dropped  behind  the  horizon  of  it. 
Gold  epaulets  shone  on  the  shoulders  of  stern  commanders 
of  the  nation's  ships  and  its  soldiers,  gallooned  diplomats, 
whose  costumes  were  as  far  apart  as  the  nations  they  repre 
sented,  Cabinet  members — in  a  word  it  was  all  that  one  might 
expect  on  an  occasion  chosen  by  the  Polish  minister  to  intro 
duce  a  visiting  admiral,  general  and  statesman  from  his  own 
country  to  Washington.  These  dignitaries,  we  say  parenthet 
ically,  told  our  reporters  before  they  left  for  their  native 
shores,  that  never  in  their  lives  had  they  seen  a  more  im- 

203 


THE  RADICAL 

pressive  body  of  men  and  women;  therefore,  those  whose 
plebeian  point  of  vantage  was  in  the  darkness  of  the  outside, 
lit  though  it  was  by  calcium  lights,  may  know  what  the  en 
chanted  realm  on  the  inside  was  like. 

Fiske's  remark,  of  course,  paved  the  way  for  the  apostle 
of  democracy  to  expatiate  on  the  time  when  law  of  caste  and 
iron  fences  should  make  no  distinctions  between  man  and  his 
brother.  His  people  becoming  the  only  people  on  earth,  they 
were  bound  to  inherit  all  the  earth.  But  we  are  asked  to 
attend  the  reception  at  the  home  of  the  Polish  embassy  and 
not  to  enter  Utopia.  Let  us  employ  the  interim  rather  to 
explain  that  the  legislature  of  Illinois,  breaking  a  deadlock, 
had  sent  Bruce  McAllister  from  Congress  to  the  Senate  to 
fill  the  four  unexpired  years  of  the  expired  Senator  Reeves, 
who,  according  to  those  disappointed  wretches  who  longed 
for  his  toga,  had  devoted  as  many  years  to  dying  as  most  men 
to  living. 

Therefore,  let  us  not  be  surprised  when  Fiske  receded 
and  Inez  Hammersmith,  removing  herself  from  that  back 
ground  of  silks,  laces  and  diplomatic  and  martial  gold,  and 
advancing  toward  Bruce,  addressed  him  as  Senator  McAl 
lister.  Bruce  himself  felt  an  inexplicable  tremor  at  Inez's 
appearance.  He  had  expected  her ;  he  had  come  thither  with 
the  sole  hope  of  seeing  her,  but  preparation  under  certain  cir 
cumstances  hides  a  good  deal  more  from  sight  than  it  prevents 
from  coming  into  being.  The  new  year  had  almost  arrived 
before  Inez  returned  to  New  York  from  Europe  and  over 
another  month  had  elapsed  before  she  joined  her  family  in 
Washington.  And  this  was  the  first  time  since  the  day  of  his 
memorable  battle  and  victory  in  the  House  that  they  had  met. 
Those  threads,  invisible  to  others,  that  love  transforms  into 
impassable  barriers,  held  them  apart.  He  knew  she  had 
returned  and  held  that  he  should  have  heard  from  her.  Her 

204 


A  WHITE  NIGHT 

reasoning  steered  in  an  opposite  direction,  and  so  they  might 
have  drifted  farther  and  farther  apart  had  not  accident,  on 
which  love  relies  as  impartial  arbiter,  brought  them  together 
again. 

On  this  straw  they  waged  quarrel  greatly  for  a  while. 
She  believed  herself  neglected;  he  insisted  that  he  had  been 
ignored.  Inwardly  he  rejoiced  not  to  find  her  indifferent. 
For  her,  in  an  environment  fast  growing  monotonous,  he 
struck  a  highly  accentuated  note  of  difference  that  fell  on 
a  grateful  ear.  Here  was  the  same  social  kaleidoscope 
through  which  she  had  been  looking  until  her  eyes  were  tired 
of  seeing  the  same  varicolored  glasses  in  it  form  but  slightly 
different  combinations,  and  here  was  a  man  who  stood  on 
the  outer  edge  of  it,  refusing  to  adjust  himself  into  its  color 
schemes,  and  who,  for  that  very  reason,  stood  by  himself  as  an 
original  and  therefore  an  interesting  entity.  He  had  proved 
stronger  than  Washington,  being  of  it,  but  standing  apart 
from  it  with  a  sort  of  warm  Lincolnian  aloofness. 

Stirred  by  a  mood  she  sought  an  exchange  of  confidences 
with  him  more  intimate  than  seemed  in  tune  with  their  in 
trusive  surroundings.  She  led  the  way,  almost  as  impercep 
tibly  as  she  might  have  led  a  conversation,  through  the  parlor 
and  toward  the  back  of  the  large  Southern  house.  He  fol 
lowed  submissively.  They  paused  for  a  moment  to  chat 
with  Georgia  Fiske  Ten  Eyck,  and  a  moment  afterwards 
Bruce  avoided  collision  with  the  graceful  form  of  Sydney  P. 
Shaw. 

For  the  occasion  an  addition  of  floor  space  had  been  ac 
quired  by  throwing  open  the  dining  room  doors  and  building 
a  tentlike  arrangement  around  the  generous  girth  of  the  rear 
porch.  In  the  large  old-fashioned  garden  below — preserved 
from  a  rigorous  formality  by  a  seemingly  careless  arrange 
ment  of  fountains  and  rockeries — innumerable  red  and  blue 

205 


THE  RADICAL 

miniature  electric  lights  came  to  life  and  died  out  like  fireflies 
amid  thick  shrubbery.  The  sudden  change  in  the  weather 
from  chilliness  to  a  full  spring  warmth  had  permitted  this  in 
novation  at  the  last  moment,  and  it  had  therefore  some  of  the 
charm  of  the  unpremeditated.  One  or  two  of  the  younger 
couples  even,  defiant  of  rheumatism  and  other  ills,  had  strolled 
outside.  They  could  be  traced  only  now  and  then  by  the 
gleam  of  a  masculine  cigar  or  cigarette,  the  sound  of  crunched 
gravel,  moving  aside  with  a  protest,  the  light  laughter  of  a 
woman  pleased. 

Inez  stood  on  the  stairs  undecided  for  a  second  and  then 
she  said :  "  We  will  risk  it."  She  threw  over  her  bare 
shoulder,  with  defiant  carelessness,  a  light  wrap,  and  they 
stepped  into  the  garden — a  garden  up  and  down  whose  paths 
Webster  and  Clay  had  passed  in  their  day,  whispering  what 
sweet  nothings,  meditating  what  fond-laid  plans,  history 
luckily  never  may  know. 

In  front  of  a  clump  of  lilac  bushes  she  stopped  and  said : 
"  How  warm  it  is!  I  fancy  that  I  can  smell  the  lilacs  and 
hear  their  buds  open." 

The  night  was  full  of  the  soft  musical  noises  of  nature's 
resurrection.  Under  one's  feet  the  earth  stirred.  Over 
head  the  stars  laughed  in  the  golden  joy  of  being;  and  a  full 
moon,  cloudcircled  as  with  a  cap  of  white  lace,  looked  down 
on  the  world  in  a  solemn,  grandmotherly  sort  of  content. 
To  the  night  there  was  a  certain  whiteness,  a  certain  lumi 
nous  quality,  impossible  for  the  colors  of  mundane  palettes  to 
express. 

Even  Bruce,  whose  inner  life  was  so  intense  that  he  had 
little  eye  and  small  sensitiveness  for  externals,  came  under  its 
influence.  Inside,  one  was  hedged  in  by  the  four  walls  of 
a  crowded  room,  one's  utterance  was  choked,  but  here  one's 
spirit  expanded  to  meet  the  ever-widening  proportions  of  the 

206 


A  WHITE  NIGHT 

infinite.  One  could  talk !  With  her  and  the  rapturous  stars 
for  listeners  what  could  he  not  say?  He  would  grow  ec 
statically  eloquent,  carrying  away  her,  the  world  and  him 
self.  And  of  eloquence  aroused,  most  unerring  shaft  in 
Cupid's  quiver,  let  all  women  beware! 

"  Perfect!  "  she  said  and  became  silent.  Her  mind  trav 
eled  to  France  in  August  when  the  moonlight  poured  on  the 
white  clover  fields,  swimming  in  fragrance,  dazzling  white 
as  with  winter  snow;  a  land  soft  as  Cazin  had  limned  it. 

She  leaned  on  his  arm.  Her  presence,  mingling  with  his, 
thrilled  him.  Intruding  cigar  and  cigarette  disappeared ; 
they  had  the  garden  to  themselves.  There  was  about  her, 
clad  all  in  white  as  she  was,  a  luminousness,  an  emanating 
radiance  as  from  the  white  night  itself.  A  mad  impulse, 
suggested  as  by  another  self,  seized  him  to  drop  at  her  feet 
and  sob  out  his  love  as  the  universe  was  proclaiming  its 
passion  for  the  white  night,  and  the  night  was  proclaim 
ing  it  for  the  universe.  He  felt  her  complete  mastery  over 
him,  knew  his  complete  surrender,  and  he  trembled  with  a 
delicious,  unnamable  sensation  that  robbed  him  of  his  voice. 

"  It  was  cruel  of  you  not  to  have  let  me  hear  from  you 
for  so  long,"  he  choked  out  at  length.  Behold  his  eloquence 
reduced  to  a  poverty-stricken  phrase! 

"  And  of  you !  "  she  answered,  turning  her  beautiful  face, 
moonlit,  full  on  him. 

He  thought  a  second.     "  But  I  didn't  know." 

She  answered  quickly,  "  Nor  I."  The  tortuous  pathway 
brought  them  before  a  bench,  shielded  by  the  rockery.  She 
sat  down  murmuring,  "  How  beautiful  it  all  is!  " 

"  Very,"  he  answered.  Between  her  last  two  sentences 
he  felt  that  the  whole  world  had  slipped  his  grasp.  He  bent 
his  head,  bewildered  by  his  emotions,  his  rush  of  tangled 
thought,  her  presence,  the  munificent  night.  She  leaned 

207 


THE   RADICAL 

him.  His  dark  face  turned  white  with  passion.  She 
could  hear  his  labored  breath;  her  own  heart  beat  quicker. 
**  I  lone  joo,"  lips  within  his  lips  were  saying,  when  there 
was  the  disconcerting  crunch  of  gravel  on  the  walk,  the  patter 
of  an  inconsequent  conversation,  and  they  arose.  The  garden 
had  been  taken  away  from  them.  The  commonplace  had 
its  right  of  eminent  domain.  A  moment  later  both 
it  they  recognized  Georgia  and  Fiske  in  those  barely 
voices,  in  those  indistinct  forms,  but.  quite  taken 
up  with  themselves,  neither  passed  any  comment.  She  re 
newed  her  ooogratulations  on  his  elevation  to  the  senator- 
ship. 

"  If  it  pleases  you  it  gratifies  me,"  he  said. 

She  remained  thoughtful  a  second  but  answered  him 
nothing. 

"  And  your  Child-Labor  bill  ?  "  she  asked.  "  I  have  car 
ried  it  around  in  my  subconsciousness  all  night.  I  meant  to 
ask  about  it  earlier." 

He  told  her  how  pettifogging,  how  the  shifts  and  tricks 
of  Senate  procedure  had  thrust  it  aside  every  time  he  arose 
to  bring  it  before  the  consideration  of  that  august  body.  He 
explained  the  ruses  by  which  it  was  done  so  adroitly  that  even 
the  visitors  in  the  gallery  might  have  thought  that  those  who 
were  attacking  his  bill  from  ambush  were  friendly  to  it,  how 
even  the  readers  of  the  congressional  proceedings  in  the 
Record  might  have  discovered  no  word  of  enmity  on  the  part 
of  those  who  were  attacking  the  bill  from  behind  their  im 
pregnable  fortress  of  subterfuge  and  chicanery. 

The  pressure  of  her  hand  on  his  arm,  light,  transitory 
as  it  was,  expressed  her  sympathy.  "  In  spite  of  their  efforts 
to  bury  it,  however,  one  hears  much  talk  about  it.  One  reads 
much  of  it.  And  public  opinion,  you  say,  is  a  great  force  in 
these  matters." 

art 


A   WHITE   NIGHT 

"  If  it  is  persistent  enough.  Then  after  the  Senate  comes 
the  Supreme  Court.  I  fear  it  equally." 

"  With  good  cause  perhaps," 

"  Doubtlessly,"  he  replied,  looking  at  her  intently,  "  but 
why  do  you  say  so?  " 

She  was  silent.     He  repeated  the  question. 

"  I  thought  I  wouldn't  tell  you,  but  since  you  wish  to 
know — "  she  hesitated,  waited  for  his  encouragement  and, 
receiving  it,  went  on.  **  I  dined  at  the  Blackmaurs'  the  other 
night.  Justice  Addams  was  among  the  guests.  I  don't  re 
member  just  how  the  subject  of  your  bill  came  up,  but  come 
up  it  did — I  think  it  was  brought  about  by  one  of  the  sena 
tor's  questions — but  at  any  rate  I  heard  Justice  Addams  say: 
'  I  don't  think  the  Supreme  Court  will  countenance  it.  We 
are  trespassing  too  violently  on  individual  rights  in  this 
country.  The  parents  ought  to  decide  whether  their  chil 
dren  are  to  work  or  not.  Those  may  not  be  the  precise  words 
but  they  are  reasonably  exact.  We  must  go  in  now,"  she 
ended  with  sudden  irrelevance.  *'  We  have  been  out  here 
too  long.  We  may  have  been  missed  inside," 

Bruce  nodded.  On  the  stairs  he  turned  to  look  at  the 
garden  seat  occupied,  he  thought,  by  Georgia  and  Shaw  now. 
It  was  singular  that  the  disconcerting  news  she  had  brought 
him  did  so  little  harm  to  his  tranquillity.  His  imagination 
carried  him  back  to  that  bench,  held  him  there  for  many  long 
nights  to  come. 


aog 


CHAPTER    II 
GEORGIA'S  SCHEME 

THAT  was  Miss  Hammersmith  and  McAllister  who 
went  into  the  house  then,  was  it  not?"  asked  Shaw 
of  Georgia,  as  he  leaned  far  back  in  the  garden  seat 
to  gain,  as  it  were,  a  firmer  hold  on  the  elusive  beauty  of  the 
night. 

"  Yes,  I  think  so.     How  wonderful  it  is  for  April." 

He  nodded.     "  They  are  engaged,  I  hear." 

"It  is  hard  to  tell,  Sydney;  one  hears  one  rumor  one 
day,  another  the  next.  She  is  a  peculiar  girl." 

"In  what  way?" 

"  Such  an  odd  mixture  of  cold  and  warmth.  I  have  never 
met  anybody  quite  like  her." 

"  Peculiar,  I  should  say,  for  falling  in  love  with  a  man 
as  ugly  and  uncouth  as  McAllister." 

"  That  may  be  just  the  charm,  Sydney.  I  see  a  falling 
star!  "  She  pointed  upward. 

"  McAllister!  "  he  laughed  softly. 

They  were  quiet  a  while,  listening  as  Inez  and  Bruce 
had  before  them,  to  the  voices  of  the  night.  She  spoke  ab 
ruptly  : 

"  Sydney,  do  you  know  I  think  you're  foolish."  The 
moonlight  falling  on  that  firm  hand  toying  with  a  fan, 
showed  her  nervous,  as  if  she  were  venturing  on  something 
more  perilous  than  the  lightness  of  her  tones  divulged. 

210 


GEORGIA'S   SCHEME 

"  The  discovery  is  as  sudden  as  it  is  radical.  What  led 
you  to  it?"  He  spoke  half  banteringly,  half  sarcastically. 

"  A  remark  of  my  father's  the  other  night." 

"  Out  with  it,  Georgia." 

"  The  Senate  Committee  on  Public  Lands,  I  understand, 
is  considering  a  bill  to  dispose  of  something  like  forty 
million  acres  of  coal  and  oil  land." 

"  For  a  woman,  Georgia,  your  aptitude  for  figures  is  re 
markable." 

"  Thank  you.  The  bill,  too,  was  introduced  by  you.  It 
has  the  honor,  they  say,  of  bearing  your  name.  The  Shaw 
Coal  and  Oil  Land  bill  they  call  it." 

"  I  cannot  deny  the  relationship  though  I  would.  And 
then?" 

Before  she  answers  him  we  would  say,  which  their  con 
versation  does  not,  that  Shaw,  after  losing  the  nomination 
for  the  presidency  and  secretly  helping  to  defeat  Fiske,  bobbed 
up  serenely  in  the  United  States  Senate  to  fill  the  last  two 
years  of  the  term  of  the  junior  senator  from  Vermont  who 
had  died  before  he  could  perform  that  duty  for  himself. 

"  And  then,"  she  went  on,  "  if  the  bill  passes,  Anthony 
Wyckoff  will  get  all  those  acres  for  a  mere  song." 

"Who  told  you  this?" 

"  My  logic." 

"  Against  a  woman's  logic  a  man's  reasoning  is  powerless. 
Go  on,  Georgia.  Tell  me  where  my  folly  comes  in  ?  " 

"  In  not  keeping  those  forty  millions  of  acres  for  your 
self.  You  know  what  poverty  means  in  this  world.  You 
at  least  can  never  be  President  and  be  poor.  With  wealth 
you  can  control  conventions,  without  it  you  are  Sir  Anthony's 
puppet.  I  see  him  dangle  you,  making  you  perform  antics 
to  suit  his  every  whim." 

Georgia,  understanding  that  to  hope  for  the  day  when  her 

211 


THE  RADICAL 

father  should  enter  the  White  House  was  to  squander  the 
very  substance  of  which  hope  is  made,  had  resolved  during 
the  next  four  years  to  place  Shaw  on  the  nation's  altar  and 
make  it  take  him  for  its  idol. 

"  I  don't  like  to  dance  either,  Georgia,"  he  went  on  won 
dering  at  what  she  was  driving,  "  especially  this  string  and 
wire  dance.  But  perhaps  in  your  wisdom  you  can  tell  me 
how  I  can  unfasten  myself.  Cheap  as  the  Government,  by 
virtue  of  the  bill,  may  dispose  of  those  lands,  still  it  will 
take  an  enormous  fortune  to  purchase  them,  another  enor 
mous  fortune  to  develop  them.  A  senator's  salary  and 
perquisites  are  scarcely  equal  to  it.  Perhaps  you  can  tell 
me  though,  sorceress,  how  one  may  perform  that  miracle  in 
finance!  " 

"  I  am  surprised  at  your  density,  Sydney." 

"  Let  me  wonder  at  your  brilliancy,  Georgia!  " 

"  There  is  Wall  Street." 

"  It  was  before  us  and  will  be  after  our  departure."  He 
looked  searchingly  into  her  large  face  and  the  strong  features, 
softened  by  the  gracious  moonlight. 

"If  it  is  always  there  it  offers  a  permanent  opportunity. 
Grasp  it!  Organize  your  land  company  there  secretly,  and 
until  it  is  organized  and  ready  to  take  control  of  the  lands 
keep  your  bill  in  the  committee." 

"  But  if  Anthony  hears  of  this!  "     He  whistled. 

"  I  laid  emphasis  on  the  word  secretly." 

"  You  have  a  wonderful  mind,  Georgia.  You  ought  to 
have  been  a  man — ought  to  have  been,  that  is,  if  it  wouldn't 
have  robbed  the  world  of  such  a  magnificent  woman.  We 
surely  ought  to  name  our  company  after  you." 

"  Well  for  you,"  she  laughed,  pleased  by  his  double  com 
pliment,  "  that  your  adroitness  slipped  in  a  saving  clause. 
As  for  naming  the  enterprise  after  me,  I  would  rather  have 

212 


GEORGIA'S   SCHEME 

the  honor  of  naming  it.     Trite  as  it  is,  the  word  Excelsior 
has  always  appealed  to  me.     I  said  it  when  the  star  fell." 

"Excelsior  then!  Under  that  banner  do  we  march! 
Let  us  not  forget  obstacles,  however!  Remember  that 
McAllister  and  your  father  serve  on  the  same  committee. 
You  recognize  a  double  danger?  " 

Again  we  interrupt.  When  Fiske  was  defeated  and  the 
incumbent  of  the  presidency  was  nominated  to  succeed  him 
self,  the  great  man  retreated  during  the  campaign  like  a 
sulky  Achilles  into  his  tent  and  would  do  nothing  at  all.  He 
threatened  to  retire  from  politics  and  devote  himself  to  the 
law  once  more,  knowing  that  if  he  returned  to  Congress  he 
would  not  be  reflected  Speaker.  But  Fiske's  State  held  the 
man  at  his  own  sterling  worth  even  if  the  country  at  large 
did  not,  and  with  no  effort  on  his  own  part  he  was  sent  to  the 
Senate.  So  it  came  about,  the  whim  of  destiny  wishing  it, 
that  Bruce,  Fiske  and  Shaw  took  their  places  together  with 
ten  other  senators  on  the  Committee  of  Public  Lands.  En 
mity  and  friendship  alike  would  seem  to  draw  tightening 
bands  around  the  world. 

"  I  know  our  dangers,"  resumed  Georgia,  "  but  one  can 
hardly  hope  to  play  for  stakes  so  enormously  large  and  run 
no  chance.  Since  I  am  ready  to  take  them,  why  should  you 
hesitate?  " 

"  You  are  best  and  wisest  among  women !  "  he  said  en 
thusiastically,  after  thinking  around  all  the  edges  of  her 
scheme  quickly  and  searchingly. 

"  But  I  am  not  altogether  unselfish  in  this.  If  successful, 
I  should  claim  my  share  of  the  reward." 

"Which  is?" 

"You  know,  Sydney."  The  hand  that  held  the  fan 
trembled  visibly. 

"  Our  marriage?  " 

213 


THE   RADICAL 

She  nodded.  "  You  have  always  told  me  that  when  your 
finances  were  in  shape  and  you  found  yourself  settled  in 
life " 

"  Nothing  in  the  world  would  make  me  happier  than  to 
make  you  happy,"  he  interrupted. 

Looking  into  her  blue  eyes,  in  that  face  of  intellect  and 
power,  modeled  to  the  most  feminine  of  contours  by  the 
moonlight,  he  saw  no  reason  why  he  should  ever  live  to 
regret  or  wish  to  take  back  these  words. 

Her  lips  rested  on  his  lightly  as  suddenly.  They  arose 
and  entered  the  embassy. 


214 


CHAPTER   III 

A  DAY  WITH    SENATOR   MCALLISTER 

BRUCE  MCALLISTER  hastened  through  the  base 
ment  of  the  Capitol  to  the  Senate  room  of  the  Com 
mittee  of  Public  Lands.  A  meeting  had  been  called 
for  ten  and  Bruce,  delayed  by  some  business  to  which  he  had 
been  attending  in  one  of  the  departments  for  a  constituent, 
was  anxious  to  be  no  later  than  he  could  avoid. 

On  this  morning  there  would  come  up  for  discussion  a 
bill  introduced  by  Senator  Sydney  P.  Shaw  for  the  lease  in 
perpetuity  of  something  like  forty  million  acres  of  public  land, 
most  of  it  rich  in  coal  or  opulent  in  oil.  In  the  mind  of 
Bruce  McAllister,  who  had  given  the  subject  close  thought, 
there  was  no  doubt  at  all  that  the  whole  affair  was  being 
manipulated  for  the  benefit  of  Sir  Anthony  Wyckoff. 

He  saw  Anthony's  Napoleonic  shadow  fall  athwart  Shaw's 
Coal  and  Oil  Land  bill.  His  common  sense  raised  small 
question  that  if  the  bill  was  reported  out  of  committee  and 
passed  both  the  Senate  and  the  House,  Anthony  would  sweep 
the  vast  territory  into  his  insatiable  coffers  at  a  price  so  ridicu 
lously  inadequate  that  even  that  acquisitive  stronghold 
wouldn't  object  to  a  few  millions  passing  beyond  its  gates, 
especially  when  they  were  expected  to  return  and  bring  back 
so  many  more  millions  with  them. 

Bruce  had  expected  that  during  this  meeting  of  the  com 
mittee,  Shaw's  bill  for  the  lease  of  the  coal  and  oil  lands 

215 


THE   RADICAL 

would  come  up  for  a  lengthy  discussion  and  perhaps  for  a 
vote,  but  much  to  his  surprise  it  passed  with  a  bare  mention 
again,  and  was  postponed  for  a  future  consideration.  The 
delay  puzzled  him.  He  suspected  the  enemy's  subtle  hand 
working  by  invisible  means.  The  Fabian  policy,  pursued  so 
long,  baffled  him.  At  eleven  o'clock  Bruce  left  the  commit 
tee  room  of  Public  Lands  and  old  Stoutenbury,  its  chairman, 
fast  asleep  in  his  chair  at  the  head  of  the  mahogany  table, 
and  he  hurried  through  those  endless  lengths  of  corridors, 
their  yellow  walls  decorated  with  formal  arabesque  of  con 
ventional  birds  piping  no  ditties  to  measured  vine  and  pat 
terned  flower.  Finally  he  reached  his  own  room  in  the  sub- 
basement  of  the  Capitol.  The  Arlington  experimental  farm 
needed  additional  accommodations,  and  therefore  a  com 
mittee  had  been  appointed  to  fit  the  farm  to  the  accommoda 
tions,  and  since  democracy  could  do  no  harm  here,  being  at 
home  in  rural  retreats,  Bruce  was  made  its  chairman.  At 
the  disposal  of  sacred  simplicity  senatorial  courtesy  put  a 
room  that  was  wedged  in  between  the  janitor's  den  on  the 
one  side  and  the  coal  bins  on  the  other.  Diogenes,  deprived 
of  his  tub,  could  ask  for  no  less! 

Here  after  all,  Bruce  had  reflected  as  he  passed  through 
those  interminable  corridors,  where  committee  room  opened 
on  committee  room,  was  the  ponderous  gigantic  machinery 
that  turned  the  wheel  of  governmental  legislation,  destroying, 
throwing  into  dark  corners  as  into  a  dust  and  refuse  heap, 
what  was  favorable  to  his  people — whence  came  the  power 
of  the  complicated  mechanism — and  what  at  the  same  time 
was  inimical  to  the  great  god  of  commerce  for  whom  this 
ponderous  complicated  mechanism  was  run. 

At  exactly  twenty  minutes  to  twelve  Bruce  emerged  from 
his  room  where  he  had  been  dictating  letters  to  his  secretary, 
plowed  his  way  through  that  labyrinth  of  corridors  again 

216 


A   DAY  WITH   SENATOR  MCALLISTER 

and  up  the  bronze  stairway,  reserved  for  the  senatorial  foot 
step,  that  ascended  to  the  main  floor. 

Bruce  walked  through  the  cloak  room  to  his  seat  in  the 
last  row  of  the  Democratic  side  of  the  Senate  chamber,  dig 
nified  and  solidly  impressive  enough  to  serve  the  gods  in 
council.  At  a  few  minutes  to  twelve,  their  hands  in  their 
pockets,  in  strolled  the  gods  themselves,  chatting  as  they 
moved  over  the  affairs  of  Olympus  and  the  deeds  of  puny 
mortals,  crawling  like  ants  on  the  mundane  sphere  far, 
far  below.  Each  particular  divinity  found  his  desk  in 
one  of  the  concentric  rows  that  circle  about  the  wide  dais 
where  Jove  himself,  wielding  a  presidential  gavel,  sat  en 
throned. 

Once  in  their  desks  the  senators,  who  have  certain  dimen 
sions  and  attributes  in  common  with  mortals,  busied  them 
selves  with  their  private  correspondence,  deaf  to  the  clamor 
of  the  clerk  droning  on  and  on  through  a  list,  high  as 
Olympus  itself,  of  pensions,  memorials,  petitions,  reports, 
bills — all  that  vast  river  of  legislation — presto !  our  mountain 
is  turned  into  water! — that  flows  on  silently  and  without 
interruption  into  the  lirritless  sea  made  by  the  outpouring 
that  has  gone  before  it. 

A  bill  to  encourage  the  destruction  of  Canadian  thistles 
was  up  for  debate,  having  been  given  the  right  of  way  by  the 
Steering  Committee,  and  as  unfinished  business  it  would  com 
mand  the  floor  of  each  afternoon  session  until  it  was  sup 
planted  by  another  measure.  Therefore,  the  McAllister 
Child-Labor,  bill  could  only  be  indulged  in  the  morning  hour 
and  after  the  consideration  of  what  is  known  as  the  morn 
ing's  business. 

When  the  moment  came  around  Bruce  arose  in  his  seat 
to  call  up  his  bill;  whereupon  a  senator  from  Massachu 
setts,  who  ran  most  of  the  woolen  mills  of  his  own  State  and 
15  217 


THE   RADICAL 

various  cotton  mills  in  the  South,  arose  to  ask  if  the  McAllis 
ter  Child-Labor  bill  had  been  read;  and  thereafter  a  senator 
from  New  York,  who  was  a  greater  banker  than  a  legislator, 
bobbed  up  to  remark  that  he  hoped  if  the  bill  was  taken  up, 
it  would  be  read  at  length;  and  immediately  afterwards  a 
senator  from  Virginia,  who  owned  enough  coal  to  keep  the 
whole  world  at  fever  heat,  requested  that  the  bill  be  read 
for  information,  which  provoked  from  Bruce  the  statement 
that  he  had  not  asked  for  a  unanimous  consent  to  call  up  the 
bill,  which  in  turn  brought  a  protest  from  the  senator  of 
Arkansas,  who  told  the  South  what  to  do  with  its  politics 
and  its  cotton,  and  it  did  it,  that  unanimous  consent  was  cer 
tainly  necessary,  which  lofty  and  weighty  opinion  found  a 
second  in  the  voice  of  the  venerable  millionaire  senator  from 
Michigan,  whose  avowed  object  in  life  it  was  to  marry  labor 
to  capital,  and  to  live  to  bless  the  morganatic  union,  which 
finally  brought  forth  a  ruling  from  the  President  of  the  Sen 
ate  against  Bruce  and  in  favor  of  the  protesting  senators, 
which  left  nothing  else  for  Bruce  to  do  than  to  say  he  would 
move  to  proceed  to  a  consideration  of  the  bill  on  the  follow 
ing  Monday. 

Bruce  recalled  bitterly  that  thus  chicanery  had  bandied 
about  his  Income  Tax  bill,  his  Anti-Injunction  bill,  and  as  he 
peered  around  at  those  venerable,  white-bearded  faces  and 
divined  what  was  stirring  in  their  world-building  minds,  a 
feeling  of  helplessness,  of  utter  dismay  came  over  him. 
What  did  the  struggle  avail?  He  was  merely  wasting  his 
energies,  awakening  to  laughter  their  cynical  indifference. 
They  regarded  him  probably  as  a  Don  Quixote  who  was 
hurled  into  painful  notoriety  by  the  protesting  sail  of  the 
windmill  he  had  attacked. 

At  four  the  Senate  adjourned  and  Bruce  retreated  to  his 
allotted  space  in  the  sub-basement  to  take  up  his  unfinished 

218 


A  DAY  WITH   SENATOR  MCALLISTER 

business  with  his  secretary.  At  dusk  Elaine  called  for  him 
and  they  left  the  Capitol  to  dine  in  a  restaurant  near  by,  and 
an  hour  or  so  later  they  walked  over  to  the  Baltimore  and 
Ohio  depot  to  meet  their  brother  Peter,  who  was  coming  on 
from  New  York. 

Peter  McAllister,  who  has  dropped  out  of  these  chron 
icles  for  so  long  a  time,  left  for  Europe  when  Bruce  was 
elected  to  Congress  and  there  he  had  continued  his  scientific 
studies  in  the  universities  of  France  and  Germany.  Bruce 
had  obtained  for  him  a  position  in  one  of  the  laboratories  in 
the  Department  of  Agriculture  and  Peter  intended  to  make 
his  future  home  in  Washington. 

Tired  and  dusty  from  his  journey  Peter,  after  greeting 
his  brother  and  sister  warmly,  suggested  that  they  at  once 
make  for  their  apartment ;  but  nothing  save  a  moonlight  visit 
to  the  Capitol  on  this  perfect  spring  night  would  satisfy 
Elaine.  Bruce  acquiesced  with  his  usual  good  nature,  but 
Peter  yawned,  declared  Elaine's  vagary  sentimental  and  went 
under  protest,  loitering  behind.  He  had  come  to  engage  in 
his  profession  in  the  capital  much  like  a  priest  going  to  an 
unvisited  city  to  celebrate  a  mass,  the  church  itself  counting 
for  naught,  the  ceremony  for  all. 

It  was  Elaine  who  had  nicknamed  Peter  the  priest  of 
science,  and  the  sobriquet  was  apt  in  more  senses  than  one. 
Portly,  rotund,  although  but  three  inches  shorter  than  Bruce, 
his  fatness  had  the  ecclesiastical  cast.  A  long  residence  and 
speculation  in  the  realm  of  scientific  ideas  and  ideals  gave 
Peter  the  air  of  one  who  dwelt  apart  in  his  own  world.  His 
head  was  bald  on  its  broad  top  and  a  ring  of  black  hair  sur 
rounded  it,  tonsurelike.  He  dressed  soberly  in  a  worn,  black 
frock  coat  that  flapped  below  his  knees.  Peter  in  a  way 
was  to  science  what  Bruce  was  to  politics.  Science  was  his 
shrine.  His  was  a  whole-hearted  devotion,  a  mania  that 

219 


THE  RADICAL 

would  have  destroyed  him  had  not  his  nerves  been  made  of 
steel. 

When  the  trio  surveyed  the  Capitol  from  the  Senate's 
terrace,  Elaine's  imagination  was  touched  by  the  somberness 
of  that  great  pile — a  colossal  shadow  thrown  against  the 
vaster  shadow  of  the  infinite  night.  Then  the  sable  cur 
tains  were  tossed  aside  and  the  moon  rolled  forth  in  all  her 
splendor  and  the  stars  drew  around  her  their  glittering 
phalanx. 

Elaine,  responsive  to  the  change,  indulged  a  happier  imag 
ination  and  let  her  thoughts  populate  the  fountains,  the  trees, 
and  the  grottoes  of  the  moon-flooded  park  with  vivacious 
armies  of  legendary  folk.  What  a  place  for  them  to  make 
merry!  In  her  eyes  it  was  as  if  the  witchery  of  the  hour 
almost  seemed  to  signal  each  dryad  and  nymph  from  her 
imprisoning  tree  or  shrub,  each  naiad  from  the  depths  of  her 
mossy  fountain.  It  was  now  the  time  and  place  for  Titania, 
clapping  her  hands  lightly,  to  summon  her  elfin  bands  that 
they  might  fill  the  park  with  their  mischievous,  laughing 
voices. 

While  Elaine's  fancies  occupied  her,  Bruce  looked  out 
ward  from  his  coign  as  if  he  were  surveying  the  whole  land. 
The  tired  Peter  asked  him  with  a  yawn  of  what  he  was  think 
ing.  Bruce,  ashamed  like  a  virgin  in  love  of  the  fine  emo 
tions  that  were  kindling  in  his  breast,  gave  no  answer. 


220 


CHAPTER   IV 

PETER'S  JOB 

SIR  ANTHONY  was  growing  impatient.  Sydney's 
dilatoriness  fretted  him.  He  thought  it  was  high 
time,  public  sentiment  being  quiescent,  that  the  Shaw 
Coal  and  Oil  Lands  bill  be  reported  out  of  committee.  He 
summoned  Sydney  before  his  august  presence  and  lectured 
him  severely,  saying  that  if  he  didn't  move  and  move  quickly 
he  would  command  those  of  the  majority  members  of  the 
committee,  who  were  his  tried  henchmen,  to  see  to  it  that  his 
will  was  done. 

"  Senatorial  courtesy,"  started  Sydney. 

"  I  don't  care  a  snap  of  my  fingers  about  senatorial  cour 
tesy,"  replied  Anthony,  his  little  eyes  glowing. 

"  Neither  do  I,"  said  Sydney,  "  only,  and  especially  in 
questions  of  delay,  it  is  a  cast-iron  rule  that  the  majority 
accept  the  wishes  of  the  chairman  of  the  committee.  Even 
the  minority  members  will  refuse,  unless  an  agreement  is  im 
possible,  to  snatch  a  bill  out  of  the  chairman's  hands  and  vote 
to  report  it  out  in  spite  of  his  desire." 

"  And  so  that  doddering  old  idiot  of  a  Stoutenbury  stands 
between  me  and  those  forty  millions  of  rich  acres.  It's  pre 
posterous." 

"  But  it's  the  truth." 

"  All  this  folderoy  and  circumlocution  and  mummery 
ought  to  be  thrown  to  one  side,"  scolded  Anthony.  '  They 

221 


THE   RADICAL 

interfere  with  business.  The  country  needs  a  new  constitu 
tion." 

Sydney  bowed.  "  And  then  it  must  be  remembered  that 
that  man  McAllister  is  on  the  committee,  too.  He's  a 
ferret!" 

"  I  guess  my  national  university  will  take  care  of  him. 
If  it  doesn't,  other  things  will,"  said  Anthony.  "  Don't  you 
mind  him;  go  ahead  just  as  if  he  didn't  exist  and  get  your 
Coal  and  Oil  Lands  bill  reported  out." 

Sydney,  pouring  forth  regrets  as  freely  as  Anthony's  vats 
poured  forth  oil,  promised  that  he  would  hurry,  and  he  kept 
his  word  by  goading  his  Wall  Street  agents,  Messrs.  Gore 
and  Fry,  into  greater  and  greater  efforts  in  behalf  of  the  Ex 
celsior. 

Only  a  few  days  after  this  unpleasant  interview  the 
national  university  was  founded  and  put  into  operation  by  its 
board  of  trustees,  made  up  partly  of  representatives  from  the 
Senate,  the  House,  the  Cabinet,  scientists  from  the  depart 
ments  and  scholars  of  national  repute.  And  but  a  few  days 
after  the  wheels  of  this  academic  machine  made  their  first 
revolution,  Peter  McAllister,  the  sober  priest  of  science, 
came  to  Bruce  rejoiced  beyond  measure,  ebullient  as  a  master 
of  dances. 

Bruce,  who  sat  at  one  of  the  side  windows  of  their  apart 
ment,  gazing  out  over  Arlington  Heights  and  the  distant  hills 
that  rose,  tier  on  tier,  far  beyond  it,  looked  up  as  his  brother 
entered  the  room,  wondering  what  his  elation  meant  and  he 
asked  coolly:  "  Who's  the  lady,  Peter?  " 

"  It's  a  bigger  thing  than  a  lady,"  answered  Peter  some 
what  scornfully.  "  There's  been  some  talk  of  giving  me  an 
original  research  department  in  chemistry  in  the  new  univer 
sity." 

"  That's  the  new  school  that  Mr.  Anthony  Wyckoff  is 

222 


PETER'S  JOB 


founding  for  those  who  already  know  nearly  everything,  to 
learn  all  there  is,  eh?  Well,  seeing  that  you  are  so  happy 
over  the  prospect,  I  hope  it  will  turn  out  to  be  more  than 
talk.  But  why  are  you  going  to  be  any  better  off  than  you 
are  now?  What's  put  all  the  rubber  into  the  heels  of  your 
sobriety?" 

Peter  sat  down  beside  Bruce,  leaning  his  square  shoulders 
and  his  bald  head  toward  him.  "  You  see  it's  just  exactly 
what  I  wanted — in  fact  exactly  what  I've  wanted  nearly  all 
my  life.  I  shall  have  my  living  assured,  and  I  can  quit  this 
irksome  routine  work  and  follow  a  line  of  original  investi 
gation." 

"  Cut  loose  from  the  cart  you've  been  hauling  all  these 
years  and  turn  around  to  browse  on  what's  inside  of  it,  eh  ?  " 

"  That  about  expresses  it,  Bruce."  Peter's  face  grew 
more  serious  yet  brighter  and  his  eyes  opened  wide  and 
dreamily;  at  that  moment  there  was  a  striking  family  resem 
blance  between  the  two  brothers,  who  looked  as  different  as  if 
they  had  been  born  of  different  parents.  Peter  drew  his 
chair  closer.  "  I've  never  told  you,  Bruce — I'm  not  much 
of  a  hand  to  talk  until  things  are  done;  but  I've  been  work 
ing  away  night  and  day  for  years  on  a  theory  of  mine. 
There  are  times  when  I  don't  like  to  even  let  myself  dare  to 
think  of  the  possibilities  of  it;  but  I  think — I  have  good  solid 
reasons  for  knowing  that  I  am  on  the  brink  of  one  of  the 
greatest  discoveries  ever  made  in  biological  chemistry." 

Bruce  studied  his  thumb  nail  closely  as  if  his  whole  mind 
were  fastened  there,  and  Peter,  despite  the  stoicism  in  which 
he  had  trained  himself,  felt  hurt  at  what  appeared  to  be  a  lack 
of  gladness  and  sympathy  on  his  brother's  part.  Surely  there 
is  nothing  sadder  in  life  than  to  be  compelled  to  bear  what 
should  be  the  source  of  a  great  happiness  all  alone! 

"  I'm  positive,"  continued  Peter,  "  that  my  discovery 
223 


THE  RADICAL 

when  completed  will  do  more  to  cure  the  horrible  diseases 
and  ills  that  now  afflict  humanity  than  anything  brought 
to  light  by  the  centuries  of  science.  Modern  medicine  will 
find  it  as  important  and  revolutionary — even  far  more  so — 
than  Pasteur's  contributions  to  science.  I  don't  want  to 
bore  you  with  the  details  of  it,  Bruce;  it's  too  long  and 
dry  for  a  layman;  but  you  will  grasp  my  theory  when  I 
say  that  the  central  idea  of  it  is  that  the  ions  of  the  blood 
unite  chemically  to  produce  electricity  instead  of  heat;  in 
other  words,  that  the  combination  and  recombination  of  ions 
in  the  human  system  is  the  source  of  electricity  which,  in 
turn,  through  its  many  transformations,  evolves  all  our  life- 
giving  energies."  He  paused. 

"  I  see,"  said  Bruce,  "  you've  got  a  little  patent  to  do 
away  with  doctors  and  remove  sickness  automatically."  His 
voice,  the  eagerness  of  expression  on  his  face,  proved  the 
interest  and  the  emotion  that  his  words  denied. 

Peter  shook  his  big  head,  impatient  of  interruption,  and, 
bringing  his  finger  tips  together,  he  clapped  his  hands 
slightly  as  he  ejaculated:  "Now,  when  certain  chemicals 
are  absent  in  the  blood  the  ions  fail  to  give  this  electricity, 
and  you  have  an  impoverishment  of  the  system,  a  weakness 
of  the  nerves  and  the  diseases  consequent  upon  it.  I  hope 
to  supply  the  chemicals  artificially  by  the  injection  of  salts 
and  serums;  and  I  believe  that  the  cure  of  consumption, 
insanity,  of  the  scourges  of  existence  that  have  baffled  science 
for  so  long  are  in  my  hands." 

"  And  you've  carried  ideas  like  that  around  with  you  in 
silence  all  these  years?  It's  a  wonder  the  pressure  didn't 
blow  the  top  of  your  head  off!  But  I  always  expected  big 
things  of  you,  Peter,"  he  added  gravely,  "  and  the  fact  is 
that  I've  been  disappointed  not  to  have  heard  of  them 


224 


PETER'S  JOB 


"  What  was  the  use  of  telling  anybody,"  groaned  Peter. 
"  My  theories  are  just  in  that  state  where  if  I  announce 
them  I'll  be  laughed  at  as  a  charlatan  or  denounced  as  a 
sensational  advertiser,  whereas  if  I  have  money  and  leisure 
enough  to  continue  my  investigations  I'll  be  accepted  as  a 
discoverer  and  a  scientist." 

"  So  you  have  been  floating  between  sky  and  dry  land 
until  this  offer  from  the  national  university  comes  along, 
settles  your  difficulty  and  drops  you  where  you  want  to  go  ?  " 

"  Yes,  it  does,  Bruce."  He  arose  and,  standing  at  the 
window,  looked  out  on  the  white  Doric  front  of  Arlington 
House,  which  under  the  softening  influence  of  the  dusk 
took  on  the  nobler  aspect  of  the  Grecian  temple  after  which 
it  was  modeled.  Did  it  symbolize  to  him  the  new  temple 
of  science  whose  portals  he  yearned  to  enter  as  high  priest 
to  dedicate  it  to  humanity? 

"  Wasn't  there  a  string  tied  to  that  offer,  Peter  ?  "  There 
was  just  a  slight  throb  of  pathos  in  Bruce's  voice,  as  if, 
despite  his  efforts  at  the  humorous,  pathos  had  gradually 
been  gaining  an  upper  hand  over  him. 

Peter  turned,  as  if  shocked  by  his  brother's  question  and 
his  changed  tone,  as  if  he  had  seen  the  pillars  of  Arlington 
House  totter  and  tumble.  "What  do  you  mean,  Bruce?" 

"  I  suppose  you  think  your  brother  is  an  awful  skeptic, 
Peter;  but  I  believe  if  a  man  is  hungry  and  penniless  and 
he  stumbles  on  a  pocketbook  in  the  street  suddenly,  he  wants 
to  look  around  carefully  and  see  if  there's  a  string  tied  to 
it  before  he  stoops  to  pick  it  up — likely  as  not  there's  a  bad 
boy  behind  the  fence." 

"  You're  speaking  in  riddles,  Bruce,"  he  said  anxiously. 

"  Well,  Peter,"  explained  Bruce,  pulling  his  long  right 
leg  around  his  left  and  twisting  the  right  foot  around  the 
left  ankle,  "  that  new  prospective  job  of  yours  is  a  lure 

225 


THE   RADICAL 

they've  put  out  to  catch  me.  I  have  only  to  behave  myself 
according  to  their  standards  of  behavior,  never  pull  on  the 
bills  they  shove  and  never  shove  on  the  bills  they  pull,  and 
you're  to  have  the  job  that  your  heart  is  set  on.  Anthony 
Wyckoff  and  his  interests  are  the  bad  boys  behind  the  fence  ; 
do  you  see  ?  " 

Peter  turned  his  face  and  looked  out  of  the  window 
again,  saying  nothing  in  reply.  Bruce  arose  and  put  his 
big  hand  on  his  brother's  shoulder  affectionately:  "It's  a 
pretty  hard  position  they've  shoved  me  into,  isn't  it  ?  I  know 
just  how  you  feel  about  it,  Peter;  you  needn't  tell  me — 
you're  a  McAllister." 

"  It  isn't  altogether  for  myself,  Bruce;  I  don't  want  to 
be  either  hypocritical  or  vainglorious,  but  I'm  perfectly  will 
ing  to  give  up  my  life — what  does  a  man  without  wife  or 
family  need  to  care  about  that? — -to  relieve  the  suffering 
and  wretchedness  of  humanity." 

"  You're  a  McAllister  and  I  understand  that,  too,  Peter  ; 
and  it  makes  it  just  that  much  harder  for  me  to  bear." 

"  But  the  changes  you  want,  the  principles  you  are  trying 
to  establish  are  bound  to  come  anyway;  I've  heard  you  say 
a  dozen  times  that  the  change  is  as  inevitable  as  the  coming 
of  spring  after  winter — it's  in  the  evolution  of  things."  He 
was  silent  as  if  he  wished  to  say  more,  but  as  if  his  own 
conscience  would  not  allow  him  to  influence  his  brother's. 

"  And  with  your  discovery  it's  different,  I  know.  It 
may  be  lost  forever  or  held  back  all  the  way  from  twenty 
years  to  a  century,  and  in  the  meantime  you  see  people  that 
you  could  save  suffer,  go  insane,  and  die  in  torture." 

Peter's  big  bald  head  nodded  hopefully  as  if  Bruce's  un 
aided  grasping  of  his  own  point  of  view  would  lead  him  to 
the  sure  acceptance  of  it.  "  But,  Peter,  I  guess  the  same 
principle  is  at  the  bottom  of  both  our  problems.  It  boils 

226 


PETER'S   JOB 


down  to  a  question  of  conscience,  and  both  of  us  are  McAl 
listers — I  can't  help  that  and  I  don't  believe  you  want  to. 
Supposing  we  change  shoes,  and  some  one  should  come  to 
you  and  say:  'Here,  we'll  put  that  long  brother  of  yours 
into  the  Cabinet  or  the  Supreme  Court  if  you  will  just 
keep  quiet  and  stop  denouncing  our  scientific  methods  for 
shams  and  lies,  and  if  you'll  admit — you'll  only  have  to 
keep  still  to  do  it — that  you  have  been  mistaken.'  Would 
you  do  it,  Peter?  " 

"  I  don't  think  that  I  would,  Bruce,"  came  the  slow  reply. 
Bruce  felt  Peter's  burly  body  quiver,  as  with  suppressed  emo 
tion,  and  he  knew  what  those  few  words  had  cost ;  or  it  may 
have  been  that  only  Bruce's  hand  trembled  and  that  he 
translated  his  own  feelings  into  his  brother's. 

The  darkness  closed  in  quickly  on  the  dusk;  the  sun's 
glowing  red  ball,  sinking  swiftly  behind  the  Virginian  hills, 
lost  color  and  died  out.  Bruce  arose  and  walked  over  to 
a  front  window,  giving  on  the  south.  As  the  darkness  grew 
blacker  and  blacker  the  white  lines  of  the  Monument  stood 
out  clearer  and  sharper,  as  if,  too,  like  the  moon  and  the 
stars,  it  had  been  waiting  in  patience  for  the  night  to  come 
and  give  it  life.  The  old  dreamy  look  passed  over  his  face, 
and  he  broke  the  deep  silence  with : 

"  Quite  a  bit  of  stone  over  there,  Peter;  you'd  better  come 
and  have  a  peep  at  it." 


227 


CHAPTER   V 

THE   CAT   SCRATCHES   AT   THE    BAG 

IT  was  the  boast  of  the  argus-eyed  Edward  Donovan 
Butler  that  he  never  traveled  anywhere  without  learn 
ing  something — the  pity  was  that  his  travels  were  cir 
cumscribed.  The  vaunt,  to  give  it  significance  by  attachment, 
was  made  on  his  return  from  Chicago,  when  he  went  to 
Bruce,  as  Achates  to  his  /Eneas,  with  the  information,  given 
him  by  a  Chicago  attorney,  that  a  gigantic  deal  in  Western 
land  was  being  underwritten  by  a  big  New  York  law  firm. 

Thereupon  the  argus-eyed  Butler  flew  to  New  York, 
and  one  eye  following  one  trail  and  another  scouring  a  by 
way  of  its  own  selection — there  was  at  least  one  path  for 
every  eye — he  soon  discovered  that  Messrs.  Gore  and  Fry 
were  organizing  a  company  to  develop  the  resources  of  that 
vast  Western  territory  as  soon  as  it  should  pass  out  of  the 
Government's  control.  It  will  be  seen  that  the  farther  But 
ler  traveled  the  more  he  learned. 

"  It  hardly  seems  probable  to  me,"  said  Bruce,  discussing 
the  deal  with  Butler,  "  that  Anthony  himself  would  go 
about  floating  the  thing  in  quite  that  way.  I  suspect  com 
peting  interests  at  work.  The  whole  affair  has  baffled  me 
since  the  beginning.  It  would  seem  to  Anthony's  interest 
to  have  had  the  Shaw  bill  reported  out  long  ago,  and  yet  it 
sticks  there  in  committee." 

"  Of  course  you  know  Shaw  could  have  the  bill  reported 
out  if  he  wished.  He  controls  old  Stoutenbury.  He  owns 

228 


THE   CAT  SCRATCHES  AT  THE  BAG 

him.  The  old  fellow  is  under  the  thumb  of  his  beautiful 
young  wife,  who  used  to  work  in  the  Census  Bureau,  and 
they  say  Shaw  fixed  up  the  match. 

Bruce  nodded.     "  Yes,  I  know." 

"Do  you  suspect  Shaw's  hand  in  it  anywhere?" 

"  I'm  willing  enough  to,  Ed,  but  I  can't  see  why  I 
should.  His  interests  must  be  Anthony's.  There  is  no 
reason  in  the  world  why  they  should  be  opposed." 

"  None  that  we  can  see." 

"  Nor  reason  out,  either."  Bruce  reflected  deeply,  the 
foot  of  his  right  leg  clamped  around  his  left  ankle.  "  I  tell 
you,  Ed,"  he  spoke  suddenly,  his  swarthy  face  lighting  up, 
"  we  might  get  an  inkling  of  what's  in  the  air  by  letting 
Wyckoff  know  that  you  have  learned  about  the  organiza 
tion  of  his  new  company.  If  he's  in  it,  and  knows  about 
it,  then  there's  no  harm  done.  If  he  doesn't  know  about 
it  he  might  ask  questions  of  us  that  would  let  the  cat  out 
of  the  bag." 

Holy  High  Jinks,  Butler's  divinity,  gave  enthusiastic 
sanction  to  the  idea.  "  But  who's  to  go  to  Anthony?  "  he 
asked,  his  calmer  thought  weighing  difficulties.  "  Clearly 
you  can't.  I  can't  either;  the  very  terms  under  which  the 
story  was  given  me  make  it  impossible.  In  a  way  I'm  under 
oath.  If  we  send  anybody  else,  and  the  story  breaks,  it's 
all  over  with  us." 

Bruce's  foot  sought  his  ankle.     "  I'll  find  somebody." 

"Whom?" 

"  Somebody." 

Butler  knew  that  Bruce's  nothings  and  his  somebodys 
were  as  insurmountable  as  stone  walls,  and  having  had  his 
forlorn  experiences  in  attempting  to  scale  them  he  let  the 
matter  drop. 

Our  own  abilities  for  ascension  being  bounded  only  by 
229 


THE   RADICAL 

the  skies,  we  are  enabled  to  look  over  Bruce's  as  over  all 
other  walls  and  to  tell  the  inquisitive  that  the  person  whom 
he  intended  to  honor  with  the  carrying  of  that  veiled  mes 
sage  to  Sir  Anthony  was  Miss  Inez  Hammersmith.  His 
choice  did  credit  to  his  astuteness.  Every  namable  circum 
stance  favored  the  accomplishment  of  that  task.  To  him 
only  one  slight  obstacle  presented  itself,  slight  but  still  of 
moment  enough  to  block  the  undertaking — would  she  ac 
cept  that  mission? 

Here  was  another  situation  to  test  the  mettle  of  eloquence. 
It  had  failed  him  once,  but  the  fault  had  been  his  own ;  this 
time  it  would  stand,  as  it  were,  on  its  own  intrinsic  merit, 
and  if  it  fell  short  of  opportunity  again  he  would  number 
it  among  the  shattered  illusions. 

The  trial  came  in  the  Hammersmith  library  a  day  later. 
Here  it  was,  the  drum  beats  of  his  heart  arousing  martial 
courage,  he  eagerly  challenged  the  issue.  Awaiting  her  he 
gazed  around  the  dignified  room,  all  hung  with  dark-red 
velvet,  the  woodwork  of  its  high  cases  and  furniture  re 
strained  and  self-contained  in  hue.  Here  might  the  sages, 
whose  life-work  was  told  in  the  volumes  upon  those  shelves, 
be  content  to  pass  their  immortality,  brooding  somberly  in 
undisturbed  quiescence  as  in  an  eternal  twilight  of  time. 

Inez  entered  laughing.  The  room  lightened  as  if  the 
gold  of  its  trimmings  had  been  scattered  with  a  more  un- 
reckoning  hand,  and  the  sages  retreated,  scowling,  before 
youth  wisely  heedless  of  any  problems  but  its  own. 

"  I  came  for  a  favor,"  spoke  Eloquence  baldly,  stripped  of 
verbal  ornament. 

"The  wherefore  matters  but  little;  you  are  here,"  she 
said.  And  then  half  archly,  after  her  fashion,  before  he 
could  gain  advantage  from  her  graciousness,  she  went  on, 
"Is  it  Child  Labor  again?" 

230 


THE   CAT  SCRATCHES  AT  THE   BAG 

"  No,"  he  returned, 

"  Then  it  may  wait,  may  it  not?  Meanwhile,  tell  me 
what  new  fortunes  our  bill  has  met." 

"  Well,  the  moment  they  passed  the  bill  to  encourage 
the  destruction  of  Canadian  thistles  I  moved  that  the  Senate 
proceed  with  a  consideration  of  our  Anti-Child  Labor  bill, 
but  they  executed  a  contretemps  by  forcing  an  executive 
session." 

"  But  with  your  path  cleared  of  thistles " 

"  And  made  worse  by  the  introduction  of  another  bill 
to  refuse  the  use  of  the  mails  for  transporting  insect  pests!  " 

"  The  insects  will  disappear  like  the  weeds." 

"  To  give  way  to  something  worse  ?  "  he  asked. 

"  You  have  fought  too  long  and  valiantly  to  lose  heart." 

"  I  am  far  from  it."  He  peered  into  the  dense  green  of 
the  rug  as  if  he  were  gazing  into  the  translucent  waters 
of  the  sea.  "  Another  bill  is  making  big  drains  on  my  time 
and  sympathy  now." 

"What  bill?"  Curiosity,  standing  on  tiptoe,  its  hand 
rounded  over  its  ear,  was  wondering  whither  he  tended. 

"  That  Shaw  Coal  and  Oil  Lands  bill.  Have  you  heard 
of  it?" 

"  Only  remotely." 

He  outlined  it,  summarizing  the  parts  that  he  thought 
Shaw  and  Anthony  were  playing  in  it.  He  himself  wished 
to  preserve  the  territory  for  the  United  States.  Give  the 
Government  possession  in  perpetuity  of  the  land,  and  here 
was  an  estate  sacred  to  the  rights  of  his  people  on  which 
monopoly  never  could  trespass.  Here  were  forty  millions 
of  Government  acres  that  would  exist  as  a  threat  to  greed, 
ready  to  encroach  on  its  privilege  and  destroy  them  if  nec 
essary.  These  acres  might  form  the  open  road  by  which 
his  people  might  advance  to  take  possessions  away  from 

231 


THE   RADICAL 

Government  and  form  the  Cooperative  Commonwealth. 
These  forty  millions  of  acres  would  lend  themselves,  so  to 
say,  for  the  posting  of  signs  to  instruct  the  citizens  of  the 
morrow. 

Invisible  were  the  cords  that  for  her  bound  him  to  his 
cause,  his  cause  to  him;  and  equally  slight,  working  with 
a  like  subtlety,  was  the  same  cord  that  acted  as  a  dividing 
line  between  the  two — a  barrier  easily  and  often  passed. 

Her  eager  questions  proved  her  warm  interest. 

"  And  now  we  discover  that  a  rival  company  is  being 
organized  in  New  York  to  purchase  and  develop  this  land," 
came  his  answer  to  one  of  them. 

"  And  that  leads  you  to  believe?  " 

"  I  don't  know  what  to  believe.  I  am  entirely  in  the 
dark." 

Her  sympathies  fluttered  dovelike  to  him.  "  And  the 
favor  for  which  you  come  to  me  ?  " 

"Light!" 

"  Your  answer,"  she  said,  her  face  softened,  "  puts  me 
where  you  were,  in  the  dark.  Need  I  say  what  I  would  do 
to  help  you  if  it  lay  in  my  power?  " 

"  I  had  thought,"  he  explained  half  reluctantly,  "  of 
sounding  Sir  Anthony  in  an  indirect  way.  If  he  happened 
to  know  of  this  other  company  our  ignorance  would  be  none 
the  less  dense ;  if  he  himself  is  in  ignorance  his  own  questions 
may  give  us  the  clew  to  the  knowledge  we  seek." 

Her  face  was  thoughtful.  "  And  you  wish  me  to  be  the 
direct  plummet  that  is  to  sound  those  waters  for  you  ?  " 

He  nodded,  leaning  nearer  toward  her,  his  gray-blue 
eyes  fastened  piercingly  on  her. 

She  pondered  again.    "  I  will  do  it,"  she  said  slowly. 

And  behind  those  words  he  thought  he  heard  the  welling 
echoes  cry,  "  I  would  do  anything  for  you."  His  spirit 

232 


THE  CAT  SCRATCHES  AT  THE   BAG 

rushed  toward  her.     He  felt  she  would  deny  him  nothing 
now.     His  ardent  love  pleaded  for  utterance. 

At  that  moment  Mrs.  Hammersmith,  silver-haired,  beau 
tiful  as  in  youth,  stepped  through  the  half-opened  door.  Inez 
saw  the  lengthening  shadows  cross  his  swarthy  face  and, 
guessing  what  substantial  presence  had  cast  them,  her  own 
heart  trembled. 


16  233 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE   ARMS   OF   THE   ENEMY 

SHALL  Bruce  McAllister  be  accused  of  consistently  vot 
ing  with  the  radicals  and  persistently  dining  with  the 
conservatives  ?  If  so,  shall  we  visit  upon  him  the  pangs 
of  indigestion  or  shall  we  deprive  him  of  his  franchise  ?  The 
double  chastisement  might  better  fit  his  perfidy!  For  woe 
to  him  who  barters  his  principles  for  his  dinner,  which  every 
man,  wisely  not  quarreling  with  his  bread  and  butter,  does 
almost  as  often  as  he  seats  himself  at  the  table. 

We  mention  this  subject  merely  because  when  Bruce 
McAllister  and  his  sister  Elaine,  guests  at  the  dinner  of 
the  Hammersmiths,  stepped  into  the  great  drawing-room, 
prodigal  as  the  renaissance  of  massive  splendors,  he  let  his 
curious  mind  weigh  for  a  second  the  cunning  corruption 
wrought  by  social  bribery.  It  was  as  potent,  as  tireless,  here 
in  Washington,  lifting  the  gifted  out  of  the  class  whence 
they  come  to  the  circle  above,  changing,  as  it  lifted,  their 
sympathy  for  the  class  they  left  behind  for  the  ideals  of 
the  resplendent  circle  in  which  they  are  permitted  to 
enter. 

But  let  the  warm-hearted,  healthy  Addison  drive  such 
morbid  vapors  out  of  the  eccentric  brain  of  our  hero !  Were 
the  whole  world  as  hearty  and  hale  as  Addison  into  what 
an  unlocked  inn  would  it  be  converted!  Against  his  pink- 
ness,  his  blondness,  and  his  rotundity,  Bruce  appeared  as 

234 


THE   ARMS   OF  THE  ENEMY 

lean,  lank,  and  swarthy  as  ever.  Time  has  intensified,  not 
softened,  the  differences.  Addison  has  changed  in  nothing 
save  in  his  attitude  toward  politics,  for  which  he  has  fast 
been  acquiring  a  relish  bred  of  success,  for  his  is  the  seat  in 
Congress  left  vacant  by  Bruce.  The  congressman  is  dead 
or  moved  to  the  Senate — long  live  the  congressman ! 

Addison  introduces  Ruth  Wyckoff,  daughter  of  Sir  An 
thony,  who  is  quite  as  small  as  her  father  in  stature,  with 
hair,  complexion,  and  features  of  a  kind  that  did  not  find 
as  many  admirers  as  her  money.  Addison  had  met  this 
heiress  to  inexhaustible  millions  on  the  Continent,  and  the 
young  man  being  human  we  cannot  blame  him  for  talking 
himself  into  the  belief  that  it  was  the  power  such  wealth 
conferred  and  not  the  money  itself  he  wanted.  Her  con 
stant  harping  on  religion  and  philanthropy  bored  her  blond 
lover  to  death ;  but  her  fad  might  have  been  women's  clubs 
and  lectures,  and  that  was  worse.  Had  such  been  the  case 
Addison  would  not  have  married  her  for  all  her  money. 
What  Addison  wanted,  when  all  was  said  and  done,  was 
the  easiest  of  easiest  lives,  and  Ruth  Wyckoff  seemed  the 
easiest  of  all  easy  means  to  attain  it. 

A  moment  afterwards,  for  the  very  first  time  in  his  life, 
Bruce  was  introduced  to  Sir  Anthony  Wyckoff  himself,  who 
remarked — let  the  future  historian  note  the  gravity  and  im 
portance  of  it: 

"  I'm  very  pleased,  indeed,  to  meet  you.  I've  wanted 
that  honor  for  a  long  time,"  and  then  he  went  on  in  his 
deep  rich  voice  to  declare  that  he  admired  our  hero's  de 
mocracy  immensely.  He  was  a  democrat  among  democrats 
himself,  and  he  lamented  the  fact  that  people  didn't  know 
it.  They  would  discover  the  fact  later  on — when  he  cor 
nered  the  earth  and  allowed  them  to  live  on  it.  Than  this 
no  man  has  greater  love  for  his  fellows! 

235 


THE   RADICAL 

But  lest  in  time  to  come  it  be  recorded  in  musty  annals 
by  sociologists,  attempting  to  sow  the  seeds  of  class  hatred 
in  a  country  where  there  are  no  classes,  that  wealth  alone 
attended  this  dinner,  we  hasten  to  add  that  among  the  others 
chosen  on  the  occasion  to  bask  in  Sir  Anthony's  golden 
smiles  were  Sydney  P.  Shaw,  who  had  nothing  in  the  world 
save  an  ever-growing  hope  of  coming  into  his  due  share  of 
those  forty  millions  of  acres,  and  Franklin  De  Wolfe  Fiske, 
who  had  even  far  less. 

Inez  had  protested  that  the  presence  of  the  two  enemies 
so  bitter  could  not  help  but  wreck  the  success  of  the  affair. 
But  her  mother  was  carried  away  with  the  idea  that  she 
might  achieve  a  reconciliation,  and  she  smilingly  overrode 
her  daughter's  objections.  Previously  Mrs.  Hammersmith 
had  been  abetted  in  her  project  by  Sir  Anthony  Wyckoff, 
who,  for  certain  reasons  of  his  own,  wished  these  enemies 
to  be  made  as  friends.  What  could  better  show  that  An 
thony's  heart,  like  a  big  percentage  of  his  money,  was  in  the 
right  place? 

Aristocracy — the  dinner  like  ourselves  is  without  class 
prejudice — is  represented  in  the  imposing  monocle  of  the 
Polish  minister  and  the  haughty  lorgnette  of  his  wife;  who 
shall  face  either  of  them  unafraid?  Of  the  law  it  shall  be 
said  that  it  was  no  more  absent  now  than  in  many  another 
crisis  of  the  nation.  Its  majesty  was  upheld  by  Justice 
Addams  and  his  wife,  of  whom  the  justice  stood  in  more 
dread,  so  they  say,  than  all  the  rest  of  the  nation  of  the 
justice. 

Bruce,  anxious  to  take  the  justice's  intellectual  measure, 
had  just  finished  talking  with  him  when  Inez  strode  for 
ward  with  Georgia  Fiske  Ten  Eyck.  Light  words  passed 
between  them,  shot  forth  and  back  as  shuttles  in  the  loom, 
when  Georgia  dropped  her  point-lace  handkerchief,  and 

236 


THE  ARMS  OF  THE   ENEMY 

Bruce  stooped  to  pick  it  up  in  so  awkward  a  manner  that 
she  could  not  restrain  her  lips  from  pursing  into  a  smile. 

"  What  an  odd  and  delightful  fragrance,"  commented 
Inez,  as  if  to  shield  Bruce's  embarrassment  with  a  phrase. 
She  was  willing  he  should  be  laughed  at,  provided  only  that 
she  was  the  one  who  laughed. 

"  I  noticed  it,"  said  he,  still  inhaling  the  faint  delicate 
aroma,  flowerlike,  as  of  rose  leaves  crushed. 

"  Both  of  you,"  laughed  Georgia,  "  have  cultivated  and 
cultured  noses.  It's  attar  of  roses  from  the  precious  bottle 
that  the  Persian  minister  sent  to  me." 

Thus  they  chatted  on,  turning  nothing  into  the  rivulets 
of  conversation,  the  river  of  conversation  itself  toward  noth 
ing,  when  dinner  was  announced  and  the  guests,  according 
deference  to  precedent,  passed  into  the  dining  room  as  the 
order  of  their  importance  made  place  for  them  in  the  pro 
cession. 

The  dinner  over — it  was  one  of  those  interminable  affairs 
that  attest,  before  they  reach  a  surfeited  end,  to  the  infinite 
resources  of  the  modern  cuisine  and  the  endless  straits  of 
modern  wits — the  guests  left  the  dining  room  as  they  had 
entered  it;  and  the  only  difference  to  mark  their  exit  from 
their  entrance  was  that  they  looked  more  bored  on  going 
out  than  when  they  had  come  in.  Certainly  the  fault  was 
not  the  chef's! 

Anthony's  daughter  had  fallen  to  Bruce's  lot  by  that 
inevitable  social  lav  that  joins  us,  in  the  spirit  of  marriage, 
to  the  person  to  whom  we  are  least  suited,  and  he  was  glad 
when  the  proper  signal  permitted  him  to  escape  from  her 
table  talk,  confined  to  the  elevation  of  the  soul  of  the  black 
folk,  and  fly  to  his  cigar  and  coffee,  which  would  be  inter 
ested  solely,  he  hoped,  in  soothing  the  vexed  digestion  of  one 
overfed  white. 

237 


THE   RADICAL 

But  just  before  that  so-wished-for  moment,  when  he  was 
making  his  bow  in  the  drawing-room,  Inez  hailed  him  and 
she  half  said,  half  whispered,  leaning  over  a  book  of  photo 
graphic  views: 

"  I  broached  the  subject  of  the  company  to  Mr.  Wyckoff. 
If  he  wasn't  aware  of  its  existence,  if  it  took  him  by  surprise, 
he  didn't  show  it.  His  eyes  twinkled  a  little  brighter  for 
a  second  and  that  was  all.  It  may  have  been  that  I  imag 
ined  it!" 

"  Did  he  ask  any  questions?  " 

"  Not  one.    He  changed  the  subject  at  once." 

"O  wise  Sir  Anthony!" 

"  But  that  isn't  all.  My  father  went  to  New  York  last 
week  and  he  invested  in  the  company." 

"  I  might  be  able  to  tell  much  if  I  knew  who  solicited 
the  investment." 

"  Senator  Shaw  recommended  it,  I  know." 

"  Hm !  But  after  all  that  tells  nothing.  Shaw  might 
have  been  merely  acting  as  Sir  Anthony's  agent." 

"  We  are  no  nearer,  then?  " 

He  shook  his  head.  Her  face  fell.  The  intrigue  had 
stirred  her  pulses;  it  had  given  her  a  hand  in  affairs  of 
moment  and  accentuated  her  importance  in  the  world. 

"  Other  avenues  may  open,"  she  said  to  encourage  her 
self  as  well  as  him.  "  Meanwhile  I  may  need  your  as 
sistance." 

"And  why?" 

"  On  account  of  my  father's  investment.  I  believe  it 
has  been  heavy." 

She  might  count  on  him,  he  assured  her  before  retreat 
ing,  as  the  mariner  on  the  northern  star,  unfellowed  for 
constancy  in  the  firmament.  When  he  stepped  in  the  library, 
and  lit  at  last  a  reflective  cigar,  Anthony  came  and  sat 

238 


THE  ARMS   OF  THE   ENEMY 

himself  down  beside  him  on  the  brocaded  seat  that  ran 
along  the  foot  of  the  stained-glass  window.  Sir  Anthony 
began  with  a  reference  to  the  subject  of  nicotine  first,  noting 
the  black  cigar  between  Bruce's  teeth.  He  didn't  indulge 
himself,  still  he  nourished  no  objection  to  the  weed;  in 
fact,  he  even  found  a  certain  comfort  in  its  fragrance.  He 
told  a  story  or  two  about  the  use  of  chewing  tobacco  in  the 
pioneer  days  of  the  West,  joining  in  Bruce's  laughter  with 
his  own  hearty  bass,  and  then  before  it  died  away  he  grad 
ually  led  the  subject  up  to  the  Shaw  Coal  and  Oil  bill,  and 
said: 

"  It  seems  to  me  a  pity  that  the  resources  of  that  vast 
Western  country  should  lie  undeveloped.  It  would  mean  work 
for  thousands  and  thousands  and  add  to  the  wealth  of  the 
country." 

Bruce,  wondering  where  Sir  Anthony  was  tending,  agreed 
with  the  statement,  only  he  added  in  reserve :  "  It  appears  to 
me  to  make  all  the  difference  in  the  world  just  how  that 
section  of  country  is  developed." 

"  Certainly,"  posited  Sir  Anthony,  his  shrewd  little  eyes 
trying  to  find  more  in  Bruce's  face  than  his  words  discov 
ered.  "  It  seems  to  me  that  the  Shaw  bill  is  most  excellent 
in  some  respects,  although  it  has  pronounced  shortcomings 
in  others." 

Between  Anthony's  Scylla  and  Charbydis  a  whole  ocean 
of  ships,  not  alone  our  lean  and  lank  hero  might  slip;  so 
easy  was  the  escape  that,  robbing  adventure  of  excitement, 
it  made  the  emprise  scarcely  worth  the  while.  "  I  am  in 
clined  to  agree  with  you,"  said  Bruce.  "  But  it  would  seem 
to  me  that  its  faults  are  more  pronounced  than  its  virtues." 
He  was  trying  to  entice  Anthony's  ship  into  the  narrows, 
wreck  it,  so  to  say,  that  he  might  learn  the  nature  of  the 
cargo. 

239 


THE   RADICAL 

But  during  the  commercial  Odyssey  the  wily  Ulysses 
had  learned  to  beware  of  dangers  he  once  had  escaped ;  and 
his  ship  turned,  making  for  the  open  seas  of  conversation, 
leaving  our  hero  with  no  more  knowledge  concerning  the 
course  mapped  out  on  its  charts  than  when  he  had  first 
hailed  it. 

The  watchful  Bruce,  letting  his  observing  glances  wander 
around  the  room,  met  an  inquiring  glance  of  Sydney,  who 
was  quite  as  anxious  as  Bruce  himself  to  know  whether  An 
thony  had  any  suspicions  as  to  the  existence  of  the  great 
reefs  and  shoals  that  lay  in  his  course. 

It  might  have  been  quite  as  fortunate  for  Sydney  in  one 
way  as  it  was  unfortunate  for  Bruce  in  another  that  he 
did  not  know  what  thoughts  were  whirling  through  the 
dark  inner  recesses  of  Anthony's  mind.  Inez's  remarks, 
dropped  as  they  were  by  a  babbling  woman  ignorant  of 
business,  Shaw's  delay  in  getting  the  bill  reported  out, 
aroused  in  the  financier  horrible  suspicions.  He  would  bide 
his  time,  and,  if  investigation  proved  Shaw  treacherous,  he 
would  pay  him  out  sufficient  rope  to  dangle  his  political  corpse 
from  the  beams  of  his  thwarted  and  disappointed  ambition. 

A  few  seconds  later  the  nervous,  restless  Anthony  shifted 
his  position  again,  and  he  was  holding  a  low-voiced  con 
ference  with  the  Polish  ambassador  near  the  shadows  of 
the  black  velvet  draperies.  The  subject  must  have  been  one 
of  more  than  ordinary  importance;  for  Anthony's  crossed 
eyes  gazed  anxiously  into  the  Count's  heavy  Slavonic  face 
looking  stoically  ahead  into  space.  Bruce  sought  distraction 
by  trying  to  imagine  the  words  that  passed  between  the 
magnate  and  the  minister;  but  with  eagle  wing  outflying 
the  sparrow,  Anthony's  boldness  let  Bruce's  fancy  sink  far, 
far  below. 

"If  then  " — so  ended  Anthony's  long  discussion — "  your 
240 


THE   ARMS   OF   THE   ENEMY 

minister  of  finance  will  divide  your  territory,  regulate  your 
prices  on  oil,  and  force  your  producers  to  combine  with  us, 
I'll  do  all  I  can  to  see  to  it  that  the  Extradition  Treaty  goes 
through  the  Senate  in  the  shape  you  suggest." 

The  Count  rubbed  his  thickly  veined  hand  from  his  cheek 
bones  to  his  nose  and  proceeded,  much  to  Anthony's  annoy 
ance — he  could  see  through  a  stone  with  a  hole  in  it — to 
go  over  the  same  ground  once  again;  and  again  Anthony 
explained  and  agreed.  And  so  was  concluded  that  mo 
mentous  bargain  by  which  Cosmopolitan  oil  was  to  go 
abroad  to  be  burned,  and  Polish  political  refugees  were  to 
be  sent  home  to  meet  something  like  the  same  condign  pun 
ishment. 

Meanwhile,  the  hours  were  growing  small,  and  Bruce 
arose  to  remind  Elaine,  deep  in  Polish  sculpture  with  the 
Countess  Villari,  that  a  new  day  was  well  on  its  way.  When 
they  went  in  search  of  their  wraps  the  imperial  Fiske  blocked 
their  path  to  remark  that  he  was  on  a  still  hunt  for  his 
daughter  and  to  vent  some  ironical  phrase  or  other  on  the 
elusiveness  of  women.  Fiske,  making  for  his  hat  and  coat, 
ranged  himself  beside  Elaine,  and  Bruce  moved  slowly  ahead 
down  the  broad  Caen  stone  stairway. 

The  door,  respecter  of  persons  first  and  last,  opened 
gravely  to  let  pass  Justice  Addams  and  his  wife.  The  justice 
paused  while  his  wife  gave  the  final  arrangement  to  her 
cloak,  and  a  sudden  gust  of  wind,  seizing  the  opportunity, 
blew  aside  the  curtains  in  the  deep  recess  of  the  landing, 
a  step  removed  from  where  Bruce  stood.  The  blown  drapery 
gave  him  a  glimpse,  shadowlike  in  the  way  it  fell  across  his 
vision  and  darted  away  from  it — of  Georgia  Fiske  Ten  Eyck 
in  Sydney  P.  Shaw's  arms.  Even  before  his  senses  could  raise 
a  question  as  to  the  reality  of  the  scene,  fearful  lest  Fiske 
and  Elaine  budge  another  inch,  and  Fiske's  mere  seeing  of 

241 


THE  RADICAL 

the  incident  give  it  a  tragic  emphasis,  he  remarked  in  tones 
unusually  loud: 

"I'll  bet  neither  of  you  can  touch  both  banisters  with 
your  ringer  tips  like  that." 

"  And  he  represents  one-ninetieth  of  the  dignity  of  the 
Senate,  too,"  drawled  Fiske's  ironical  voice. 


242 


CHAPTER   VII 

SERVANTS   OF   THE    REPUBLIC 

ROSSITER  REMBRANDT  DICKINSON  quit 
work  on  his  huge  canvas — "  The  Shut  Down,"  the 
fourth  in  the  Great  American  Series  of  ten — a  little 
earlier  than  usual,  for  the  day  had  been  a  severe  drain  on  his 
emotions"  and  sympathies.  Both  Captain  Jack  Munger  and 
Lieutenant  Glenn  Dodson  had  broken  the  news  to  him  of 
their  immediate  departure  under  Government  orders — one 
to  the  far  West,  the  other  to  the  far  East ;  and  R.  R.  was 
heavy  of  heart  and  depressed  in  mood.  He  strolled  out 
through  the  Mall  and,  sitting  himself  down  on  a  bench,  drank 
in  deep  breaths  of  the  crisp  wintry  air,  and  gazed  at  the 
Monument,  the  clear-cut  outlines  of  which  were  gradually 
merging  in  the  clouds  and  the  softer  atmosphere  of  the  sun 
set.  It  stood  there  solitary  and  lonely,  resting  on  the  earth, 
merely  resting  there  and  leaving  it  as  if  too  majestic  for 
aught  but  the  heavens. 

"  It's  like  me,"  reflected  R.  R.,  through  whose  mind  a 
kindred  thought  was  traveling;  "it's  lonely  and  alone. 
Maybe  that's  why  I  like  it  so  much.  All  my  friends  going, 
leaving  here,  and  I  stand  lonely  and  more  lonely.  Captain 
Jack  going,  Lieutenant  Glenn  going.  And  when  Captain 
Jack  cornes  back  he's  to  marry  little  Miss  Weber.  Well,  I 
suspected  as  much  before  he  confided  it  to  me.  I  ought  to 
fall  in  love  with  some  woman  and  marry,  too,  I  suppose. 

243 


THE   RADICAL 

But  I  can't  do  it;  it  doesn't  seem  in  me.  They  bother  me, 
women  do;  they  bore  me.  My  God,  how  lonely  I'm  getting! 
I'm  as  far  off  from  the  rest  of  the  world  and  its  people  as 
if  I  were  on  the  top  of  the  monument  looking  down.  It 
may  be  majestic  for  a  piece  of  stone,  but  it's  hard  on  a  man ; 
that's  what  it  is — it's  hard.  But  look  how  nobly  the  old 
fellow  stands  on  guard  to-day !  Upon  my  word,  the  monu 
ment  is  alive.  Almost  as  human  as  if  he  knew  what  a  com 
panion  he  is  for  me.  You  go  home,  R.  R.,  and  cheer  up !  " 

He  arose  and  hobbled  along  sadly,  his  head  down,  his 
shoulders  shrugged,  his  long  ridge  of  eyebrow  shooting  out. 
"  Four  of  the  ten  almost  done,"  he  murmured,  "  and  no  more 
recognition  than  if  I  had  never  lifted  a  brush !  I  don't  care 
a  hazelnut,  though,  if  I  starve  to  death.  I'll  finish  the  series. 
I'm  right;  I  know  I'm  right  and  I'm  going  ahead.  I  can't 
paint  chinee  roses  and  I  can't  pick  chocolate-cream  nymphs 
out  of  clay  with  a  toothpick;  I  can't,  and  what's  more,  I 
won't." 

He  turned  to  look  at  the  Monument  again,  his  sad 
thoughts  centering  around  it. 

"  I  can't  make  life  out,"  he  maundered,  "  it's  too  much 
for  me.  It's  tragedy,  it's  comedy;  it's  a  whirligig  that  you 
can't  stop  long  enough  to  find  out  what  it  means.  It's  a 
wheel,  that's  what  life  is,  that  keeps  turning  and  turning 
^around  until  your  head  gets  dizzy  from  trying  to  follow  its 
whirl;  and  the  rogues  and  the  rascals  are  safely  sheltered  in 
the  hub  of  it,  directing  its  course  to  suit  themselves,  and  the 
sycophants  and  the  parasites  manage  to  find  comfortable 
places  on  the  spokes,  and  the  able  and  the  good  and  the 
gentle  and  the  honest  are  pushed  on  the  rim  and  crushed 
to  death  when  it  revolves.  I'm  tired  of  it;  I've  had  enough 
of  it!  I'm  willing  to  cry  quits.  My  God!  how  I'm  wearied 
of  it  all!" 

244 


SERVANTS  OF  THE   REPUBLIC 

He  reached  the  end  of  the  Mall  and  he  wheeled  around 
to  take  one  last  lingering  look  at  the  obelisk  before  going 
home.  The  sky,  flushed  by  the  setting  sun,  was  still  bright 
with  colors,  as  mixed  and  various  as  if  selected  at  haphazard 
from  R.  R.'s  lusty  palette.  The  darkness  came  faster  and 
faster,  the  glowing  pinks  and  scarlets  were  fading  swiftly; 
the  night  had  come,  but  the  Monument  was  still  discernible, 
erect,  guardant,  as  if  defying  all  the  powers  of  nature  to 
force  it  to  yield  the  smallest  fraction  of  an  inch. 

He  drew  himself  up  to  his  full  height,  moved  his  shoul 
ders  as  far  back  as  they  would  go  and  touched  his  hat. 
"  May  I  stand  thus  when  my  night  comes  and  the  darkness 
falls  over  me,"  he  whispered,  plowing  on  to  his  room  in  the 
house  opposite  Franklin  Square,  trying  to  solace  himself  with 
the  reflection  that  a  rubber  of  whist  awaited  him,  and  that 
his  book  lay  on  his  table  ready  to  open  its  covers  and  spread 
its  usual  consolation  before  him. 

He  bade  his  fit  of  blues  good  night;  it  had  dogged  him 
up  to  the  doorstep  and  he  would  have  no  more  of  its  de 
pressing  company;  rudely  he  shook  it.  But  happiness  had 
not  calendared  that  day  and  night  for  its  own,  and  the  cards 
were  to  remain  unfingered  and  the  book  unread;  for  while 
the  artist  had  been  counting  on  his  landlord  to  cheer  up  his 
downcast  spirits,  Scollard  was  waiting  for  R.  R.  to  per 
form  something  of  a  like  service  for  him,  and  the  deluded 
Rossiter  Rembrandt  found  out  soon  enough  that  he  had  been 
drawing  up  one  reckoning  and  his  host  another.  Even  the 
bevy  of  boarders  that  gathered  twice  daily  around  the  Scol 
lard  table  was  by  no  means  up  to  its  standard  of  light-heart- 
edness  and  merriment. 

Unexpectedly,  on  that  very  afternoon,  Doc  Scollard  had 
been  dismissed  from  his  position  in  the  War  Department, 
and  his  poor  hand,  trembling  with  age,  lacked  the  confidence 

245 


THE  RADICAL 

to  try  new  doors,  and  he  stood,  so  to  say,  shivering  in  the 
cold  outside,  benumbed  by  despair.  The  world  was  black 
for  him.  Turn  out  the  gas  jet  around  which  a  myriad  of 
sand  flies  swarm  at  night,  and  to  them  the  whole  universe 
must  seem  engulfed  in  darkness;  it  is  much  the  same  with 
weak  mortals  when  their  little  two-penny  candle  of  hope 
is  extinguished. 

Doc  Scollard,  leaning  far  back  in  his  chair,  ate  scarcely 
a  morsel  and  said  not  a  word.  His  dim  eyes,  usually  vitre 
ous,  were  red,  as  if  from  weeping.  Now  and  then  he  stroked 
his  imperial  and  mustache  nervously,  and  ran  his  hand,  curi 
ously  marked  by  reddish  spots,  through  his  glossy  brown 
hair  that  curled  back  from  his  forehead  and  fell  on  his 
shoulders  in  a  style  that  was  considered  poetic  once  upon  a 
time.  His  eccentricity  ran  to  his  long  hair  and  stopped 
short  with  his  habits.  His  linen  was  frayed  but  spotless; 
his  clothes  were  shabby  but  clean;  his  whole  attire  spoke 
pathetically  of  a  hard  battle  against  an  unrelenting,  grind 
ing,  humiliating  poverty.  Fate  had  been  playing  with  him 
all  his  life  as  the  cat  played  with  the  mouse — giving  him 
a  temporary  escape  from  his  misfortunes  for  the  cruel  joy 
of  capturing  him  again  to  increase  his  misery.  He  was  not 
without  his  share  of  intellect,  taking  intellects  as  they  run, 
but  he  seemed  to  have  every  other  ability  save  the  ability 
of  putting  his  ability  to  use.  He  had  tried  almost  every 
profession  known  to  man,  and  he  contrived  to  fail  lam 
entably  in  all  of  them.  He  was  simply  one  of  those  bub 
bles  of  chance  that  the  winds  of  circumstances  blow  into 
Washington. 

He  belonged  to  that  class  of  government  clerks,  called 
"  Sundowners,"  who  seek  to  add  to  their  slender  incomes 
by  doing  outside  work  after  the  short  office  hours  of  the 
departments  are  over,  and  even  now  the  sign  "  Dr.  Scol- 

246 


SERVANTS  OF  THE  REPUBLIC 

lard  "  hung  from  his  house  front  inconspicuously,  as  if  rather 
ashamed  of  being  there,  where  it  invited  the  hostile  action 
of  all  the  elements  and  the  friendly  regard  of  no  patients. 
He  had  had  only  one  case  in  all  the  years  that  he  had  been  in 
Washington,  but  as  that  resulted  in  a  damage  suit  for  mal 
practice  he  would  have  been  better  off  without  it.  There 
is  something  about  the  persistent  hard  luck  of  some  men 
that  arouses  our  humor  rather  than  our  pity,  for  the  various 
incidents  of  their  ill-starred  careers  accumulate  one  on  the 
other  with  the  comical  regularity  of  a  French  farce.  When 
Scollard  began  to  detail  his  misfortune,  for  which  he  had 
an  insuppressible  fondness,  even  R.  R.,  who  was  just  as 
sympathetic  as  any  man  could  be,  found  it  hard  work  to 
restrain  a  grin,  although  angry  at  himself  for  the  ap 
parent  lack  of  feeling.  Scollard,  in  a  word,  may  be 
described  as  the  kind  of  a  man  whose  wife  keeps  a  board 
ing  house. 

Mrs.  Scollard  shot  sundry  shy  glances  at  her  husband 
from  her  end  of  the  table,  wondering  if  it  was  possible  that 
fate  could  have  a  new  sorrow  in  store  for  them,  and  if  its 
resourcefulness  in  that  direction  had  not  been  exhausted  long 
ago.  She  was  still  a  good-looking,  well-preserved  woman, 
despite  all  the  efforts  of  carking  fate  to  undermine  her  health 
and  her  attractiveness,  and  she  was  usually  cheerful  and 
sunny,  the  result  of  a  frivolous  temperament  rather  than  a 
strong  will  and  mind.  A  few  deep  wrinkles,  a  wide  patch 
of  gray  hair  on  her  black  pompadour  were  all  that  her  buoy 
ancy  and  youth  had  surrendered  to  worry  and  nagging  care. 
Her  talk  ran  entirely  to  her  ancestry — she  came  from  the 
old  South — and  the  good  times  of  her  youth. 

Fanny  Scollard,  their  only  daughter,  whom  Bruce  had 
the  pleasure  of  meeting  at  the  card  party  given  by  Ommaney, 
lacked  but  a  shade  or  two  to  turn  her  blondness  into  yellow- 

247 


THE   RADICAL 

ness.  R.  R.  called  her  "  Miss  Polly  Peroxide  "  in  jest. 
With  her  inheritance  of  good  looks,  which  was  not  small, 
the  frivolity  of  one  parent  and  the  weakness  of  the  other 
had  come  contingently.  She  was  a  stenographer  in  the  Pat 
ent  Office  and,  if  one  were  to  judge  by  her  clothes  and  her 
jewels  her  income  was  suspiciously  larger  than  her  salary. 
She  explained  away  this  mystery  of  finance  with  an  ease 
and  glibness  that  ought  to  have  won  the  admiration  of  the 
Secretary  of  the  Treasury. 

Miss  Fanny  came  and  went  at  what  hours  she  pleased, 
and  if  her  father  remonstrated  in  his  mild,  timid  manner 
she  retorted  that  she  was  earning  her  own  living;  and  her 
mother  usually  flew  to  her  aid  with  the  observation,  "  That 
the  time  to  enjoy  oneself  was  when  one  was  young!  " 

Rossiter  Rembrandt  Dickinson,  whose  quiet  observation 
nothing  escaped,  often  wondered  if  the  father  and  mother 
ever  questioned  their  daughter's  method  of  financing  her 
queenly  luxury  and  her  flaunting  extravagance;  as  for  him 
self  he  entertained  no  doubts  on  that  score.  R.  R.  had 
lived  with  the  family  for  years;  he  had  watched  the  girl, 
for  whom  he  had  a  fondness,  grow  from  girlhood  into 
womanhood;  he  had  followed  her  course  from  the  high 
school  into  the  Government  office,  and  the  decadence  of  her 
character  had  cost  him  more  than  one  sharp  pang.  She 
liked  R.  R.,  too,  in  her  own  fashion,  and  she  respected  him 
and  feared  him  more  than  she  did  any  other  being  on  earth. 
He  was  downright  honest  with  her;  his  friendship  was 
without  motive,  and  she  felt  his  superiority  and  humbled 
herself  before  it.  She  would  have  blacked  his  boots  had  it 
contributed  to  his  happiness. 

He  had  had  a  serious  talk  with  her  on  one  occasion, 
pointing  out,  as  gently  as  was  in  him,  how  her  career  must 
end,  and  she  had  burst  into  tears  and  said  she  knew  it,  that 

248 


SERVANTS   OF  THE   REPUBLIC 

she  had  lain  awake  more  than  one  night  and  sobbed  herself 
to  sleep  over  it,  and  she  promised,  with  God's  help,  to  mend 
her  ways.  She  did  it,  not  a  week  thereafter,  by  throwing 
over  a  congressman  and  taking  up  with  a  senator.  The 
member  of  Congress,  wild  with  jealousy,  had  her  turned  out 
of  office;  but  the  senator  ripped  up  the  department  and  had 
her  restored  immediately  to  a  better  position  at  a  higher 
salary.  There  are  times  when  ambition  is  to  be  reckoned 
among  the  virtues. 

Grant  Scollard,  the  only  son,  was  the  practical  member 
of  the  family;  he  earned  twenty  dollars  a  week  in  the  Post 
Office  Department  and  he  spent  thirty-five.  Women  of  Fan 
ny's  type  would  have  thought  him  handsome,  and  Grant 
himself  thought  that  there  was  no  type  of  woman  who  didn't. 
He  was  tall,  with  a  good  proportion  of  breadth  of  chest  to 
length  of  limb;  his  blond  hair  was  combed  in  neat  curly 
layers  and  his  pretty  face  had  as  much  character  as  an  equal 
weighty  of  putty.  R.  R.,  whom  Grant  despised  as  a  vulgar 
person  and  a  moralist,  nicknamed  him  "  Beau  Baxter-Street 
Brummel." 

Grant  used  what  brains  he  had  in  the  devising  of  two 
schemes — one  for  borrowing  money  and  the  other  for  avoid 
ing  to  pay  it  back.  He  borrowed  from  generous  fellow- 
clerks,  who  willingly  lent  him  part  of  their  salaries,  asking 
nothing  in  return  but  ten  per  cent  interest.  He  borrowed 
freely  from  Fanny,  suspecting  whence  the  money  came,  and 
Fanny  lent  him  with  an  equal  freedom,  suspecting  where 
the  money  went — to  the  race  track  at  Benning  and  the 
gambling  hells  just  outside  of  the  district  line.  Vulgar  as 
R.  R.  was,  he  had  no  hesitancy  in  borrowing  from  him 
until  he  told  the  profligate,  with  a  grave  mien,  that  it  was 
an  insult  to  take  an  artist  for  a  banker.  He  borrowed  from 
his  mother,  who  pinched  herself  to  lend,  and  he  borrowed — 
17  249 


THE  RADICAL 

but  suffice  to  say  that  he  tried  to  borrow  from  everybody 
who  would  lend. 

Grant  never  worried,  for  his  faith  in  the  ability  of  the 
family  and  the  United  States  Government  to  support  him 
was  unbounded.  His  extreme  reliance  on  Uncle  Sam's 
good  nature  all  but  cost  him  his  freedom  once.  He  and  a 
number  of  other  clerks  made  a  little  too  free  with  the  Post 
Office  funds,  and  before  they  had  time  to  gamble  away 
their  ill-gotten  gains  warrants  were  sworn  out  for  their 
arrest  and  they  were  landed  in  jail,  cursing  the  sternness  of 
a  master  who  had  so  much  and  raised  such  a  fuss  over  so 
little.  When  Fanny  received  a  hurried  line  from  her  brother, 
setting  forth  his  trouble  and  beseeching  her  aid,  the  poor 
girl  cried  her  eyes  red  and  went  about  the  house  disconsolate, 
moaning,  "  To  think  that  my  brother  should  disgrace  our 
old  Southern  family  like  that!  "  Then  she  calmed  down  and 
had  a  stormy  session  with  her  senator  in  Grant's  behalf, 
and  it  ended  with  the  hushing  up  of  the  scandal,  as  far 
as  Grant's  part  in  it  was  concerned,  and  the  restoration  of 
the  young  scapegrace  to  office.  One  sees  what  an  influential 
member  can  do  for  the  rest  of  the  family. 

Despite  these  trivial  faults  of  character,  Grant  was  his 
mother's  favorite;  for  she  got  it  into  her  silly  head  that  his 
fine  looks  kept  up  the  family's  aristocratic  traditions  and  that 
he  bore  a  strong  resemblance  to  Bushrod  Washington,  from 
the  day  of  whose  birth  she  dated  the  Christian  era  and  the 
rise  of  her  family.  Grant  himself  set  little  store  by  his 
ancestry,  and  every  time  that  his  mother  boasted  of  it,  which 
was  nearly  at  every  meal,  he  jeered :  "  If  they'd  left  us  less 
blue  blood  and  more  yellow  coin,  I'd  go  out  to  see  what 
their  graves  looked  like." 

"  But  blood  will  tell,"  was  the  mother's  cheery  reply. 
She  considered  Grant  very  witty.  "  Yes,  it  keeps  on  telling 

250 


SERVANTS   OF  THE   REPUBLIC 

the  same  old  story  over  and  over  again  until  you  get  tired 
of  hearing  it,"  was  the  response. 

Besides  the  Scollard  family  and  Rossiter  Rembrandt 
Dickinson,  five  clerks  roomed  in  the  house  and  as  many  more 
came  there  for  their  board,  and  last  but  foremost  in  his  own 
modest  estimation  was  a  senator's  private  secretary — a  man 
with  flaming  red  hair,  freckled  cheeks,  and  a  humorous  cav 
ity  in  the  end  of  his  pointed  nose.  He  was  the  self-elected 
oracle  on  all  matters  appertaining  to  Washington  society 
and  politics,  and  although  his  income  from  this  source  was 
far  less  than  from  his  secretaryship  he  enjoyed  the  work  far 
better. 

"  There  is  a  great  surprise  in  store  for  this  country — a 
sensation,"  began  the  secretary  mysteriously,  trying  to  break 
the  cloud  of  silence  that  hung  over  the  dinner  table  that 
night.  "What  is  it?"  asked  the  dark-faced,  dapper  clerk 
from  the  State  Department.  He  was  always  in  dread  of 
the  things  that  might  happen. 

"Oh,  nothing!"  replied  the  secretary  with  portentous 
vagueness.  "  All  I  am  willing  to  say  is  that  there  is  a  great 
sensation  in  store  for  the  party  in  power,"  and  satisfied  with 
the  awe  awakened  by  his  mysterious  givings-out  he  plunged 
his  fork  into  a  baked  potato  and  refused  to  say  anything 
further. 

"  I  wish  you  would  tell  your  senator,"  piped  Miss  Cour- 
celle,  a  plump  brunette,  whose  short  fat  fingers  were  cov 
ered  with  rings,  "  that  the  girl  he  winked  his  eye  at  yes 
terday  in  the  elevator  of  the  Post  Office  building  is  apt  to  be 
out  of  a  job  and  she  wants  to  meet  him." 

"  I'll  do  that,"  said  the  secretary  seriously,  as  if  the  de 
mand  required  grave  consideration,  "  when  I  catch  him  in 
a  good  humor.  He's  bothered  these  days." 

"  Well,  they  don't  fire  me,"  chimed  in  Miss  Matheson, 
251 


THE   RADICAL 

who  conformed  to  Fanny's  type  in  looks  and  dress,  "  or  I'll 
make  it  hot  for  somebody  I  know — that's  all." 

The  other  clerks,  most  of  whom  were  employed  in  the 
Census  Bureau  and  who  had  just  heard  that  a  large  squad 
was  to  be  laid  off,  envied  Miss  Matheson  her  self-assurance, 
listened  to  her  in  amazement  and  ate  on  in  depressed  silence. 

Dinner  over,  Miss  Fanny  Scollard  and  Miss  Matheson 
put  on  their  hats  and  went  out  together,  and  Miss  Courcelle 
retreated  with  the  oracular  secretary  for  her  evening's  escort. 

"  Mr.  Dickinson,"  asked  Doc  Scollard,  catching  the 
artist  as  he  was  about  to  leave  the  room,  "  may  I  impose 
on  your  good  nature  for  a  few  minutes,  may  I  request  the 
pleasure  of  your  company  in  the  parlor  for  that  length  of 
time?" 

"  Certainly,"  answered  Rossiter,  forseeing  the  black 
shadows  of  some  dire  event. 

"  Mr.  Dickinson,"  he  remarked,  slamming  the  parlor 
door,  "  the  seriousness  of  your  character  separates  you  at 
once  from  the  other  patrons  of  my  wife's  humble  board. 
You  are  a  gentleman  and  an  artist." 

"  Which  is  tautological,"  said  R.  R.  to  himself. 

Scollard  paced  up  and  down  the  room  as  if  propelled  by 
the  emotion  which  he  was  trying  in  vain  to  control;  finally 
he  stopped  short  and  dropping  into  a  chair  beside  R.  R. 
he  put  his  hand  on  the  other's  knee  in  a  confidential  sort 
of  a  way. 

"Well,  prepare  your  mind  for  the  worst;  I  am  out  of 
a  job."  His  excitement  had  exploded  what  he  had  been 
meaning  to  take  involved  and  verbose  sentences  to  explain. 

R.  R.  did  his  best  to  console  the  old  fellow,  exhausting 
his  resourcefulness  in  an  attempt  to  trump  up  reasons  why 
one  should  not  take  it  sadly  to  heart  when  one  loses  a  job. 

"  I  might  feel  worse  about  it,"  said  Scollard,  his  hand 
252 


SERVANTS   OF  THE   REPUBLIC 

trembling,  his  voice  husky,  "  if  I  thought  I  had  been  at  all 
amiss  in  my  duties;  but  I  haven't.  No,  the  whole  thing 
has  nothing  to  do  with  the  faults  or  virtues  of  my  own. 
It  is  all  due  to  the  action  of  Senator  Sydney  P.  Shaw,  who 
had  me  removed  to  make  room  for  one  of  greater  political 
influence.  He  has  entirely  forgotten  my  former  valuable 
services  to  him.  That's  the  way  of  the  world,  Mr.  Dick 
inson  ;  when  a  man's  old  and  useless  he  is  thrown  aside  like 
an  old  shoe." 

Scollard  drew  several  sheets  of  closely  written  note  paper 
from  his  pocket  and  he  glanced  around  the  parlor  search- 
ingly,  not  only  to  emphasize  the  importance  of  secrecy  but 
also  to  show  his  peculiar  regard  for  the  confidant  he  had 
chosen.  "  I  am  more  apt  in  written  than  in  verbal  expression, 
and  I  have  resolved  not  to  let  this  occasion  pass  without 
telling  the  senator  my  opinion  of  him." 

Like  many  a  man  of  weak  character,  who  shrinks  from 
facing  a  stronger  one,  Scollard  had  lashed  his  timidity  into 
anger,  and  taking  a  quick  advantage  of  his  momentary  and 
enforced  bravery  he  had  hastened  to  put  down  in  ink  what 
he  feared  might  ooze  from  his  finger  ends  if  he  dared  a 
personal  encounter.  He  was  vain  of  his  sudden  gust  of  cour 
age,  and  he  was  glad  that  the  signs  of  it  had  taken  a  per 
manent  form  for  exhibition. 

"  Senator,"  he  began  to  read,  adjusting  his  glasses,  "  I  do 
not  flatter  myself  that  the  end  of  this  letter  will  be  other 
than  the  waste-paper  basket  or  the  fire;  but  it  is  sometimes 
well  to  recall  how  we  humble  ones  have  helped  to  assist  the 
mighty  in  their  day  of  small  beginnings.  But,  lest  benefits 
be  forgot,  let  me  recall  several  of  the  services  that  may 
have  slipped  your  mind,  now  taken  up  with  affairs  more 
momentous. 

"  No.  I — Senator,  who  other  than  Albert  Galantin  Scol- 
253 


THE  RADICAL 

lard  secured  for  you  the  handsome  maple  tree  as  well  as 
the  honor  of  planting  it  on  the  ground  of  the  State  Capitol 
when  the  Grand  Army  of  the  Republic  was  there  assembled  ? 

"  No.  II — Senator,  when  you  were  lieutenant  governor, 
whom  did  you  intrust  with  the  delivery  of  the  tents  and 
provisions  appropriated  by  our  State  to  the  sufferers  of  the 
Johnstown  flood,  and  who  saw  to  it  that  your  name  received 
sufficient  laudation  for  this  supposititious  act  of  philanthropy 
from  our  local  and  national  press? 

"  No.  Ill — Senator,  when  you  sought  your  present  illus 
trious  position,  who  was  it  you  intrusted  to  see  certain  of  our 
State  legislatures  with  certain  messages? 

"  I  need  not  go  on  mentioning  other  services,  for  undoubt 
edly  these  already  detailed  have  started  a  chain  of  associa 
tion  that  will  bring  up  only  too  quickly  what  I  have  failed 
to  expatiate  on. 

"  Now,  senator,  you  say  it  is  due  to  no  fault  of  your 
own  if  you  have  not  at  your  disposal  sufficient  patronage  to 
satisfy  the  clamorous  demands  of  insistent  office  seekers;  but, 
then  let  me  ask  you  why  you  go  outside  of  the  borders  of 
your  own  State  to  choose  strangers  who  have  done  nothing 
for  your  political  fortunes  to  fill  those  positions  at  your  com 
mand?  How,  senator,  can  you  explain  to  your  friends  at 
home  the  fact  that  you  have  selected  a  young,  beautiful,  and 
enticing  widow  from  Kentucky  for  your  private  secretary? 
Do  you  think,  when  once  known,  this  will  increase  your 
popularity  among  the  deserving  but  unemployed  citizens  of 
our  mother  State?- 

"  Senator,  you  know  that  unlike  yourself  I  cannot  betray 
the  man,  whatever  his  debt  of  gratitude  to  me,  from  whom 
I  once  have  accepted  favors;  therefore,  you  need  have  no 
fear  of  me  if  I  say  to  you  that  when  I  called  at  your  home, 
at  your  own  request  to  assist  the  said  young,  beautiful,  and 

254 


SERVANTS  OF  THE  REPUBLIC 

enticing  widow  from  Kentucky — may  your  enemies  never 
learn  of  her  existence! — in  the  distribution  of  an  extraor 
dinarily  heavy  mail,  I  found  by  the  merest  accident  im 
portant  documents  that  would  spell  your  political  ruin  if 
they  had  chanced  to  fall  into  any  other  hands  but  my  own. 
The  first  of  these  documents,  written  in  your  hand,  is  self- 
explanatory.  I  humbly  beseech  you  for  the  sake  of  your  own 
good  reputation  to  take  better  care  of  it.  The  second  ex 
hibit,  which  I  hold  of  no  inferior  value  from  a  sensational 
point  of  view,  is  a  series  of  newspaper  articles  that  show 
your  connection  with  the  long-forgotten  scandal  concerning 
the  contracts  for  the  erection  of  one  of  our  State  buildings. 
The  past,  it  is  true,  dies,  senator,  but  it  is  never  buried. 

"  Can  it  be  possible,  senator,  that  the  suavity  which 
allows  you  so  easily  to  explain  to  your  old  friends  that  you 
have  no  jobs  for  them  when  you  fill  fat  positions  with 
slender,  young,  beautiful,  and  enticing  widows  from  Ken 
tucky,  will  help  you  to  pluck  the  deadly  sting  contained  in 
these  documents? 

"  To  relieve  you  from  all  apprehension,  and  to  read  you 
through  my  own  humble  self  a  lesson  in  gratitude,  I  here 
with  enclose  the  aforesaid  documents,  urging  you  to  destroy 
them  before  they  fall  into  the  hands  of  men  less  scrupulous, 
honest,  and  punctilious  than  he  whom  you  sent  to  assist  the 
young,  beautiful,  and  enticing  widow  from  Kentucky." 

"  Ha!  ha!  "  burst  out  the  old  man  suddenly,  "  that  will 
make  him  squirm,  I  wager;  that's  heaping  coals  of  fire 
on  his  head !  That  will  make  him  regret  his  perfidy.  What 
do  you  think  of  that  for  a  letter,  Mr.  Dickinson?  " 

"  I  think,"  advised  R.  R.  gravely,  "  that  it  would  be 
the  biggest  mistake  in  the  world  to  put  that  letter  in  the 
mails.  You  will  only  anger  Shaw  and  you  can't  gain  any 
thing  by  the  transaction.  Besides,  I  know  some  people  of 

255 


THE   RADICAL 

more  or  less  prominence  here,  and  I  might  prevail  on  them 
to  find  something  for  you  in  another  department,  and  there 
is  no  good  in  having  Shaw's  enmity  to  blacken  your  character 
to  start  with." 

Scollard's  woe-begone  face  darkened,  then  it  brightened 
again  like  that  of  a  man  who  has  been  cheated  by  hope 
so  often  that  he  is  unwilling  to  trust  in  its  blandishments 
again.  After  all,  hope  offers  the  same  refuge  to  mortals  that 
the  sands  of  the  desert  do  to  the  terror-stricken  ostrich;  a 
something  wherein  to  hide  our  heads  when  we  are  utterly 
routed  and  afraid  to  face  life.  It  may  be  worse  than  foolish  to 
seek  such  a  flimsy  shelter,  but  it  has  its  comfort  for  a  terrible 
moment  just  the  same.  The  luckless  Scollard  had  been  taught 
long  ago,  by  bitter  experience,  the  vanity  of  that  expedient. 

"  It's  always  time  enough  to  despair — shove  that  off  to 
the  last  moment,"  piped  R.  R.  as  cheerily  as  he  could.  "  You 
leave  it  to  me,  I'll  find  you  as  good  a  job  as  you  lost  or  I'll 
never  put  brush  to  canvas  again." 

"  Well,"  remarked  Scollard,  with  a  show  of  bravery 
under  adversity,  "  I  suppose  matters  are  never  so  bad  that 
they  might  not  be  worse." 

"  Never,  and  we're  never  so  badly  off  that  some  one  is 
not  still  worse  off,  which  is  meant  for  consolation  to  all  but 
the  one  man  in  the  world  who  is  the  worst  off  of  all." 

They  arose  together  to  leave  the  room  when  R.  R. 
stopped  to  add :  "  Supposing  you  give  me  those  incriminating 
documents.  I  won't  do  any  harm  with  them,  I  promise 
you,  and  they  might  be  good  batteries  to  hold  in  reserve." 
He  thought  thus  to  take  from  him  one  of  the  most  besetting 
of  the  temptations  to  send  that  ill-advised,  bombastic  brief. 

Scollard  offered  an  objection;  R.  R.  argued  against  it, 
then  they  debated  his  counter  argument  for  a  moment,  and 
Scollard  yielded  as  a  child  to  its  parent. 

256 


CHAPTER   VIII 

A    FALLING   OUT 

RR.,  in  strict  accordance  with  his  promise  to  Scollard, 
9  paid  his  second  visit  to  Elaine's  studio  early  the 
next  morning;  as  on  the  first  occasion,  he  opened 
the  door  without  announcing  his  coming  by  a  preliminary 
knock.  Even  before  she  looked  up,  an  intuitive  flash  told 
Elaine  who  it  was.  He  stood  there  abashed,  hardly  knowing 
how  to  word  the  errand  on  which  he  had  come ;  it  seemed  such 
a  wrench  of  the  fitness  of  things  to  request  a  favor  of  her. 
She  stood  in  expectation  of  some  more  gratuitous  criticism  of 
her  work,  and  she  stiffened  up  ready  to  resent  it.  She  shot 
a  protecting  glance  through  her  glasses  at  her  statuettes, 
just  as  naturally  as  a  mother's  eyes  turn  toward  her  children 
at  the  first  warning  of  danger.  R.  R.  caught  the  movement 
as  well  as  the  motive,  and  he  grinned. 

"  No,  I  didn't  come  in  about  that,"  he  explained,  shaking 
his  head  solemnly;  "  its  politics  in  a  way — I  want  you  to  help 
me." 

"You  in  politics!" 

"  You  needn't  laugh,"  he  broke  forth,  turning  red,  "  I'm 
not  in  it  in  any  but  a  charitable  sense.  I  want  to  help  some 
body." 

"  I  can't  imagine  your  doing  that,  either." 

"  I  didn't  come  to  squabble.  I  don't  want  to  squabble," 
he  spluttered.  "  I  want  your  assistance  for  a  worthy  cause. 
Will  you  give  it  to  me?  " 

257 


THE   RADICAL 

"  Certainly,  you  might  have  asked  that  in  the  first  place." 

His  grin  changed  to  a  pleasant  smile,  for  he  was  glad  to 
be  taken  thus,  and  without  more  ado  he  stated  Doc  Scollard's 
plight,  asking  Elaine  to  seek  her  brother's  influence  in  his 
landlord's  behalf.  She  promised  her  assistance  with  more 
warmth  than  he  had  requested  it,  and  after  making  an  ap 
pointment  to  meet  her  at  four  o'clock  in  the  library,  where 
she  had  some  work  to  dov  he  waddled  downstairs  to  his  studio. 

He  quit  work  ahead  of  time  that  afternoon  and  waited 
for  Elaine  in  the  lobby  of  the  building,  treading  up  and  down 
restlessly,  muttering  to  himself. 

"  You  seem  to  be  amusing  yourself,"  said  she  when  she 
joined  him. 

"  Not  particularly."     He  shrugged  his  shoulders. 

"  You  ought  to,  amid  these  splendors  of  art  and  marble." 

"  Splendors  of  marble,  yes  and  no ;  the  hand  of  the  poli 
tician  and  the  loud,  vulgar  parvenu  taste  of  the  Government 
contractors  are  here;  splendor  of  art,  absolutely  no.  I  hate 
to  come  here  for  some  reasons — it  is  such  a  blasting  ser 
mon  on  our  artistic  achievements.  Look  around  you !  "  he 
waved  his  short  arm  and  an  expression  of  disgust  crept  over 
his  face. 

"  What  don't  you  like  about  the  paintings?  "  she  asked. 

"What  do  I  like  about  them!"  he  roared.  "They're 
only  fit  to  adorn  a  young  lady's 'boudoir,  together  with  her 
fancywork  and  her  knickknacks  and  her  fans  and  her  toilet 
articles  of  sterling  silver.  They're  pretty,  they're  soft,  they're 
namby-pamby.  They're  painted  with  water  and  thistle 
down  brushes.  There  is  no  feeling  in  'em,  no  life,  no  red 
blood!  They're  weak  imitations  and  anaemic  copies  of  the 
robust  masterpieces  of  the  past.  That's  a  good  phrase,  that 
last  one!  "  he  interjected. 

They  moved  along  through  the  corridors  slowly  and  he 

258 


A  FALLING  OUT 

poured  forth  his  invective  as  they  went  past  the  various  panels. 
"American  art,  bah!"  he  growled;  "it  all  reminds  me  of 
the  Californian  claret  that  goes  over  to  France  and  comes 
back  here  with  a  foreign  label.  My  compliments  to  these 
daubers" —  he  doffed  his  hat  burlesquely — "  they  belong  to 
America's  Barber's  Own  school  of  painting.  One  honest 
American  theme,  done  by  a  man  of  blood  and  iron,  would  be 
worth  the  pack." 

"And  the  Evolution  of  the  Book?"  she  asked,  it  must 
be  confessed  with  something  like  timidity. 

"It's  done  to  order;  it's  forced;  it's  trumped  up.  It's 
no  good.  The  book  was  born  of  agony  of  the  mind,  of  trav 
ail  of  the  soul,  of  the  blood  of  the  heart.  It  came  of  a  faith 
that  mocked  at  the  tortures  of  the  thumbscrew  and  the 
flames  of  martyrdom.  Did  your  artist  feel  that?  Did  he 
show  it  ?  ' 

He  turned  toward  the  ornate  marble  stairway,  and 
Elaine  followed  him,  curious  to  hear  his  scathing  criticisms 
and  his  vehement  manner  of  delivering  them. 

"  The  higher  up  you  go;"  he  commented,  "  the  worse 
it  gets,  more  allegories,  more  vapid  symbolism  and  less  art. 
The  pictures  on  the  Arts  and  on  War  and  Peace  in  these  ad 
joining  rooms  aren't  worth  one  stone  of  the  stairs  up  which 
we  came.  War  is  hell,  that's  what  war  is — it's  carnage; 
it's  slaughter ;  it's  all  that's  terrible,  and  these  dainty,  affected, 
sentimental  paintings  give  one  no  more  the  idea  of  war  than 
so  many  lavendered  fops  in  dress  coats  would  do.  '  Peace ' 
gives  me  the  horrors  worse  than  *  War ' — that  jumble  of 
priests,  with  their  votive  offerings  must  have  marched  out 
of  a  convent  of  the  conventionalities.  The  pictures  breathe 
no  calm,  no  beneficence,  no  blessed  tranquillity." 

"  There  is  some  justice  in  what  you  say,"  she  remarked. 

"  Some  justice!  It's  all  as  just  as  justice  itself!  Come, 
259 


THE   RADICAL 

let  us  get  away  from  this.  It  depresses  me.  I  hate  it! 
Let  us  look  at  some  real  art  and  lift  up  our  souls." 

He  strutted  along  hastily,  pushed  forward  by  his  enthu 
siasm,  all  forgetful  of  her  and  entered  the  pavilion  devoted  to 
the  Hubbard  collection  of  Rembrandt  etchings  and  engrav 
ings. 

"  We've  got  out  of  the  muck  of  the  alleys  and  into  the 
temple  of  art,"  he  said.  "  I  wouldn't  give  one  of  those  little 
etchings  of  Rembrandt's  beggars  for  all  the  yards  of  the 
painting  we  have  seen.  One  doesn't  know  what  to  turn  to 
first  here.  What  character,  what  ease,  what  genius  in  every 
thing  that  his  hand  touched.  Here's  the  portrait  of  the 
*  Shipbuilder  and  his  Wife ' ;  you  can  hear  them  talk  if  you 
listen.  She's  a  shrewd,  knowing,  kindly  housewife,  isn't  she? 
And  he's  a  busy,  absent  fellow,  hard  to  take  away  from  his 
accounts.  And  those  quaint  Jewish  patriarchs  and  the  blind 
Tobit !  The  poetry,  the  strength,  the  originality !  And  the 
power  and  the  sympathy  in  those  portraits  of  his  mother! 
And  his  '  Christ  Healing  the  Sick,'  what  love  and  humanity 
are  there  in  that!  What  supreme  and  masterful  skill  in 
every  detail,  in  every  light  and  shadow!  He's  my  artist! 
I  wish  I  could  have  been  with  him  in  his  day  of  adversity, 
to  have  waited  on  him,  to  have  cleaned  his  brushes,  to  have 
run  his  errands.  Just  to  have  seen  him,  to  have  heard  the 
sound  of  his  voice  would  have  been  worth  it  all." 

"  Do  you  really  mean  it?  "  she  asked. 

"  Do  I  mean  it !  "  he  said  with  a  full  and  quiet  emphasis, 
as  he  stood  lost  in  admiration  for  the  marvelous  composition 
of  the  "  Ecce  Homo,"  its  Christ,  sublime  and  luminous, 
struggling  between  divine  faith  and  bodily  torment.  She 
imagined  that  there  were  tears  in  R.  R.'s  eyes. 

"  I  never  thought  it  of  you,"  she  murmured. 

He  shrugged  his  shoulders.  "  Rembrandt  represents  all 
260 


A  FALLING  OUT 

that  I  worship — sincerity,  strength,  and  love.     Who  wouldn't 
grovel  in  the  dust  before  the  incarnation  of  that  trinity?" 

"  I  thought — "  She  paused.  "  I  have  learned  many 
things  this  afternoon,"  she  said. 

He  looked  at  her  inquiringly  for  a  moment.  His  rugged 
face  softened  as  if  one  of  the  master's  pictures  was  before 
his  eyes,  then  his  ridge  of  brow  lengthened  and  his  usual  ex 
pression  came  over  his  countenance  as  he  cautioned : 

"  It's  long  after  four.  We  shall  have  to  hurry  or  we 
shall  miss  your  brother." 

R.  R.'s  warning  had  but  one  fault — it  came  altogether 
too  late — the  Senate  had  adjourned  over  an  hour  ago  and 
Bruce  was  not  to  be  found  in  his  committee  rooms.  The 
artist  gave  vent  to  his  usual  plaint  about  the  loss  of  time,  but, 
nevertheless,  he  was  quick  to  urge  a  call  early  in  the  morning 
of  the  morrow  in  order  to  guard  against  all  danger  of  missing 
Bruce  a  second  time. 

"  I  grumble,  but  I  do  it  anyway,"  he  complained,  as  he 
dragged  his  fat  body  up  the  stairs  at  the  hour  appointed; 
"  and  that's  where  I'm  foolish;  either  I  ought  to  do  it  and 
not  grumble,  or  else  I  ought  to  leave  it  alone.  What  I  need 
is  philosophy." 

"  Ah,  you !  "  exclaimed  Elaine,  her  white  cheeks  coloring 
the  least  bit,  for  despite  the  fact  that  she  had  been  awaiting 
him,  his  entrance  came  with  an  unaccountable  shock  of  sur 
prise. 

"  Ah,  me !  "  he  mocked  in  return,  his  visage  solemn,  his 
ridge  of  brow  projecting.  "  For  once  you  are  glad  to  see 
me." 

"I?    Glad  to  see  you     How  do  you  know?  " 

"You  can  fool  Rossiter  Rembrandt  Dickinson  about 
everything  else,  but  you  can't  fool  him  about  the  human 
countenance — I've  painted  it  too  long." 

261 


THE   RADICAL 

"  Oh,  R.  R.,"  she  exclaimed  impulsively,  "did  ever  a 
man's  words  and  manner  so  belie  his  heart?"  Now  that 
she  was  getting  used  to  the  roughness  of  this  singular 
man,  she  caught  the  humorous  instead  of  the  irritating  angle 
of  it. 

"  I  don't  know  whether  they  have  or  not ;  and  what's 
more  I  don't  care.  Let's  make  for  the  Capitol." 

She  removed  her  blouse  and  they  hastened  to  catch  their 
car.  "  Another  morning  gone  to  rack  and  ruin,"  he  scolded, 
when  he  passed  the  door  of  his  closed  studio. 

"  But  I  am  giving  up  my  morning,  too,"  she  objected. 
"  I  know  all  that,"  he  put  in  complacently,  "  but  that's 
different." 

"  I  don't  mind  your  conceit  half  so  much  since  I  have 
learned  your  virtues,"  she  laughed. 

"  It  isn't  conceit,"  he  pleaded  earnestly,  "  it's  knowledge 
born  of  faith." 

His  face  was  solemn,  lit  up  as  with  the  consciousness 
of  a  high  and  firm  purpose.  Elaine  perceived  the  fading  ex 
pression,  and  she  recognized  how  necessary  his  conceit  was  to 
his  faith,  his  faith  to  his  accomplishments.  Yes,  she  was 
ready  to  forgive  the  egotism  that  had  repulsed  her  so  much 
at  first ;  she  was  forming  an  attachment  for  this  rough,  crude, 
sterling  man,  with  his  host  of  contradictions.  Before  one 
understands  the  finer  qualities  from  which  conceit  is  so  often 
radiated,  it  is  the  most  difficult  of  faults  to  overlook;  after 
this  understanding  it  becomes  the  easiest. 

They  found  Bruce  alone  in  his  room  in  the  sub-basement 
of  the  Capitol,  looking  worn  and  preoccupied,  but  a  pleasant 
smile  lit  up  his  face  the  moment  his  eyes  rested  on  his  sister 
and  R.  R.  While  Elaine  was  telling  the  purpose  of  their 
visit,  Rossiter  Rembrandt  sat  by  in  a  glum  silence,  twirling 
his  slouch  hat,  scowling  murderously.  In  the  narrow,  con- 

262 


A  FALLING  OUT 

suming  hatred  that  he  entertained  for  all  politicians,  it  oc 
curred  to  him  that  he  was  debasing  himself  by  seeking  a 
favor,  even  though  for  another,  from  the  hands  of  Senator 
McAllister,  who  was  of  the  genus;  wondering  why  he  had 
not  thought  about  that  before  starting  out  on  his  quest. 

Bruce  listened  patiently  to  Elaine  until  she  had  done — 
R.  R.  put  in  but  a  curt  word  here  and  there  despite  her  ap 
pealing  looks  for  assistance — and  then  he  remarked  that  he 
didn't  know  but  that  the  children  learned  to  say  in  the  public 
schools  that  the  three  departments  of  the  United  States  Gov 
ernment  were  the  executive,  the  administrative  and  the  jobic- 
uary.  "  I  just  wrote  a  fellow  last  week,"  he  went  on,  "  that 
the  only  job  I  had  left  was  my  own,  and  he  had  the  impudence 
to  write  back  that  he  was  perfectly  willing  to  humble  his 
pride  and  take  that.  I  sometimes  wish  he  had."  His  gray 
eyes  twinkled  undecidedly  between  humor  and  dreams,  and 
sadness. 

Bruce's  quips  fell  flat  and  met  with  a  dismal  failure 
in  so  far  as  R.  R.  was  concerned ;  he  listened  with  an  angry 
face,  his  eyes  shooting  from  the  floor  to  Bruce,  from  Bruce 
back  again  to  the  floor,  as  if  he  wished  to  say  something  and 
yet  liked  not  to  let  himself  go. 

"  You  see,"  Bruce  proceeded,  "  it's  a  rather  delicate  piece 
of  business  for  me  to  put  Scollard  right  back  to  work  after 
Shaw  has  removed  him,  especially  so,  since  my  relations  with 
Senator  Shaw  are  what  you  might  call  a  little  strained. 
However,  I  may  be  able  to  get  the  thing  done  indirectly  so 
that  my  hand  won't  show  in  it.  Call  up  at  the  house  some 
evening,  Mr.  Dickinson,  and  see  us." 

Bruce's  eyes  wandered  with  an  unwilling  and  weary 
glance  toward  the  papers  and  documents  heaped  up  before 
him  on  the  long  table. 

"  Yes,  I'll  call,"  said  R.  R.  in  a  way  that  showed  he  in- 
263 


THE    RADICAL 

tended  to  do  nothing  of  the  sort.  The  artist  wobbled  to  the 
door,  fished  through  his  various  pockets,  and  finally  drew 
forth  the  documents  Scollard  had  abstracted  from  Shaw's 
correspondence.  "  I  won't  give  it  to  him,"  he  said.  "  It 
wouldn't  make  any  difference  if  I  did;  these  politicians  all 
stand  in  with  one  another,  anyway." 

When  they  left  the  basement  and  passed  through  the  corn 
stalk  columns  at  the  foot  of  the  East  stairway — this  Samson 
of  criticism  pulled  them  up  root  and  all — and  when  they 
wended  their  way  through  the  stretches  of  corridor  and  down 
the  Capitol  stairs,  R.  R.  turned  a  deaf  ear  to  Elaine's  defense 
of  her  brother's  attitude.  He  nodded  his  big  shaggy  head 
mechanically  and  his  face  grew  black — outer  signs  of  the 
tempest  raging  within.  "They're  all  like  that!"  he 
grumbled  to  himself,  "  they'll  tell  you  a  funny  horse- thief 
story — that's  what  I  call  them,  horse-thief  stories — and  they 
will  laugh  while  their  poor  victims  eat  out  their  hearts. 
Those  demagogues  and  thieves!  If  one  of  them  didn't  watch 
the  other  they'd  tear  down  the  Capitol  to  sell  the  marble  and 
old  iron.  Whenever  there's  a  big  theft,  it's  merely  a  sign 
that  there  has  been  a  truce  between  them,  and  a  laying  down 
of  arms.  They  stop  throttling  each  other  to  join  hands  and 
throttle  the  public.  Those  humorous  senators  are  like  the 
Capitol  dome — beautiful  and  imposing  on  the  outside  but  a 
lie  and  a  sham  inside,  propped  up  by  false  scenery  and  hidden 
screens.  They  remind  me  of  the  slums  of  Washington,  rele 
gated  to  the  alleys  behind  rows  of  fine  residences.  I'd  like 
to  let  out!  I'd  like  to  tell  her!  I'm  burning!  I'm  scorch 
ing!  But  what's  the  use?  It's  her  brother  and  she  knows 
that  it  is  no  secret  that  he  is  a  politician.  That's  what  I'm 
afraid  of — her  own  brother  is  a  politician  and  there  must  be 
bad  blood  in  the  family." 

"  It  might  all  be  different,"  interposed  Elaine,  embar- 
264 


A  FALLING  OUT 

rassed  by  his  ominous  silence,  "  if  my  brother  and  Senator 
Shaw  had  not  had  a  political  difference." 

R.  R.  grinned  savagely,  showing  his  teeth.  "  I  wonder 
if  she  expects  me  to  swallow  that  excuse?"  he  muttered 
privately,  and  then  he  said  aloud:  "  I  know  what  Shaw  is! 
I  know  just  as  well  as  your  brother  does.  Doc  Scollard  is 
a  better  man  any  day ;  I  don't  care  a  drop  of  blood  from  the 
top  of  my  thumb  if  the  one  is  an  unfortunate  devil  out  of  a 
bread-and-butter  job  and  the  other  a  senator.  It's  the  old 
story  of  truth  on  the  scaffold  and  wrong  on  the  throne.  Do 
you  know  what?  It  makes  me  sick!  You  needn't  laugh  at 
me;  I  know  what  I  am  talking  about!  Rossiter  Rembrandt 
Dickinson  doesn't  say  things  unless  he  is  sure  of  them." 

Elaine  hastened  to  assure  him  that  it  was  his  awful  seri 
ousness  and  not  his  statements  which  invited  her  smile;  and 
that  explanation  seemed  to  rile  him  still  more,  for  his  brows 
puckered  until  they  shriveled  like  a  dried  peeling. 

They  were  seated  in  a  Pennsylvania  Avenue  car,  rolling 
homeward  toward  their  studio  building,  when  Elaine  re 
marked  in  the  mere  desire  to  make  conversation  and  end  a 
disagreeable  silence:  "  Don't  you  admire  my  brother? 
Hasn't  he  a  fine  sense  of  humor  ?  " 

It  was  more  than  the  excited  and  excitable  R.  R.  could 
stand.  The  living,  boiling  volcano  burst  forth.  Our  pas 
sions  are  much  like  Swedish  safety  matches,  harmless  enough 
until  rubbed  against  the  surface  that  supplies  the  missing 
element  for  combustion,  then  they  ignite.  "Admire  him? 
Admire  him!"  he  groaned.  "Girl,  I'd  like  to  know  for 
what?  Didn't  he  refuse  to  lift  a  finger  to  help  a  starving 
and  worthy  man  to  support  himself  honestly?  He's  a  dema 
gogue  !  He's  a  politician !  He  and  that  man  Shaw  are  two 
of  a  kind !  "  R.  R.  paused ;  there  was  a  terrorized  expres 
sion  on  Elaine's  pale  face  that  stopped  his  unreckoning,  fool- 
18  265 


THE   RADICAL 

ish  anger  with  a  jerk.  She  touched  the  bell,  arose  from  her 
seat  and  was  out  of  the  car  before  her  eccentric  escort  could 
realize  what  had  happened.  He  had  wounded  her  where  she 
was  the  most  sensitive,  and  she  was  too  hurt  to  trust  herself 
to  speak,  lest  the  tears  that  were  starting  to  her  eyes  should 
roll  down  her  cheeks. 

"  Well,  it's  the  truth  anyway,"  he  said  to  himself  grimly; 
"  but  I  was  a  big  fool  to  shock  her  with  it.  Why  did  I  tell 
her  that?  I  ought  to  have  known  better.  I'm  sorry  I  hurt 
her  feelings.  The  truth  isn't  for  women,  it's  for  men;  they 
aren't  strong  enough  to  hear  it." 

He  bounded  to  his  feet,  tore  down  the  aisle  and  jumped 
off  the  whirling  car,  without  giving  the  conductor  the  signal 
to  stop ;  his  fat  body  rolled  in  an  awkward  bundle,  head  over 
heels,  and  he  landed  on  the  asphalt  pavement,  slippery  with 
February  ice,  in  a  wriggling  heap.  The  conductor  shouted, 
the  motorman  yelled ;  the  pedestrians  stopped  to  laugh  at  his 
clumsiness ;  a  heavy  truck  came  to  a  sharp  halt  amid  the  vol 
uble  curses  of  its  driver,  and  R.  R.  scrambled  to  his  feet, 
severely  jolted  and  bruised,  his  upper  lip  cut,  but  saved  from 
any  serious  damage  by  one  of  those  miracles  which  usually 
attend  accidents.  "  I  always  knew,  I  always  predicted  that 
a  woman  would  be  the  death  of  me.  Haven't  I  said  so  a 
thousand  times?  "  he  muttered,  taking  a  quick  survey  of  the 
rent  in  his  overcoat.  "  There's  no  use  in  trying  to  avoid 
it.  Kismet!" 

"  Did  you  hurt  yourself?  "  asked  an  old  man  in  the  crowd 
of  bystanders  as  the  artist  was  brushing  his  clothes  with  his 
hands  and  looking  around  for  Elaine. 

"  What's  it  your  business?  "  he  replied  savagely.  "  I've 
been  in  every  big  city  on  earth  and  I  never  saw  a  place  to 
equal  Washington  yet;  no  one  has  anything  to  do  but  stand 
around  and  gape  and  watch  everybody  else!  It's  the  laziest 

266 


A  FALLING  OUT 

town  on  earth;  politics  has  ruined  it.  Why  don't  you  go 
to  work?" 

The  sympathetic  old  man  moved  away,  wondering  from 
what  asylum  this  lunatic  had  escaped,  and  R.  R.  elbowed  his 
way  through  the  crowd  and  limped  hastily  after  Elaine, 
whom  he  saw  hurrying  toward  the  corner  to  catch  the  next 
car.  Her  tears  had  dried,  but  a  sorrowful  expression  still 
lingered  on  her  face,  tightening  the  refined  lines  of  it. 

"  I'm  sorry,"  he  consoled,  planting  his  burly  body  beside 
her,  "  I'm  awfully  sorry,  I'm  just  as  sorry  as  a  man  can  be. 
I  didn't  mean  anything.  You  know  me;  you  know  how 
gruff  and  crossgrained  I  am.  I  meant  politicians,  I  didn't 
mean  your  brother." 

Her  gaze  was  fastened  straight  ahead,  as  if  she  pretended 
not  to  hear,  as  if  his  remarks  were  addressed  to  another. 
The  passers-by  stared  and  wondered,  their  attention  attracted 
by  R.  R.'s  bawling  voice,'  surprised  less  at  this  lovers'  quarrel 
than  that  such  a  refined  and  gentle  woman  should  take  up 
with  such  a  brute  of  a  man. 

Without  heeding  where  she  was  going  Elaine  let  R.  R. 
lead  her  to  the  market  corner,  wrhere  a  crowd  was  waiting 
for  cross-town  cars.  "  Let's  turn  into  the  Mall,"  he  sug 
gested  ;  "  I  can't  talk  to  you  here." 

"  I  don't  care  to  talk,  if  you  will  be  kind  enough  to  ex 
cuse  me." 

"  But  I  apologized,  didn't  I  ?  You  know  how  hard  it  is 
for  me  to  apologize,  and  I  apologized." 

"  The  apology  was  gratuitous;  I  didn't  request  it."  One 
is  never  so  conscious  of  one's  injury  as  when  the  wound  is 
being  salved ;  and  the  tears  started  to  form  in  her  eyes  again. 

"  Don't  cry,"  he  pleaded  softly.  "  I  can't  bear  to  see  a 
woman  cry.  It  kills  me." 

He  turned  his  steps  toward  the  Mall  and  while  deciding 

267 


THE  RADICAL 

whether  to  accompany  him  or  not  she  was  borne  along  with 
him,  past  the  dingy  restaurants  and  the  squalid  stores  that 
fronted  the  market.  After  the  turmoil  and  the  excitement 
through  which  they  had  passed,  the  quiet  and  the  serenity 
of  the  park  came  as  the  odors  of  balm  and  pine.  The  sun 
shone  clearly,  it  was  almost  noon,  and  one  could  all  but  hear 
the  snow  that  had  fallen  the  night  before  melt  at  the  touch 
of  the  warm  green  grass,  pushing  up  in  a  premature  and  mis 
taken  effort  to  carpet  a  pathway  for  spring.  The  sturdy 
evergreen  trees  welcomed  the  sun  and  the  snow  impartially, 
exhilarated  by  plunging  in  extremes,  and  their  dancing  shad 
ows  played  squirrel-like  on  the  paths  and  the  lawns.  He 
wondered  as  they  strolled  along  what  he  should  say,  and  she 
wondered  why  she  had  come  there  to  let  him  say  it;  deter 
mined,  whatever  his  apology,  not  to  accept  it. 

"  Let's  sit  down  here,"  he  said,  pointing  to  a  secluded 
bench  and  suiting  his  action  to  his  words.  There  was  noth 
ing  for  her  to  do  but  to  follow.  "  The  morning's  gone  any 
way,"  he  added. 

"  But  it's  your  fault;  you  came  for  me." 

"  That's  so ;  I  did ;  didn't  I  ?  "  There  are  many  men  like 
R.  R.  whose  serious  purpose  and  high  ambitions  in  life  place 
such  an  exorbitant  value  on  their  time  that  their  hearts  are 
turned  into  veritable  clocks  to  sob  out  the  flight  of  seconds 
and  minutes. 

Elaine,  glancing  up,  saw  the  blood  trickling  from  the  long 
cut  on  his  lip. 

"  What's  the  matter?  "  she  asked,  frightened. 

"  Oh,  nothing,  nothing  at  all."  He  applied  his  hand 
kerchief  to  it. 

"  But  it's  bleeding.     How  did  that  happen?  " 

"  I  jumped  off  the  car  to  catch  you.  The  fool  of  a  con 
ductor  didn't  stop  and  I  tumbled." 

268 


A  FALLING  OUT 

"  You  might  have  killed  yourself.     You're  reckless." 

He  shrugged  his  shoulders,  blessing  the  wound.  "  What's 
the  difference?  No  one  would  care  very  much,  except  me, 
and  I  shouldn't  be  left  to  mourn." 

She  smiled  at  his  ludicrous  logic,  poking  into  the  gravel 
of  the  walk  with  the  end  of  her  umbrella  stick.  "  Why 
didn't  she  say  she  would  be  sorry,"  he  thought.  "  That's 
it ;  no  one  cares  for  me."  He  eyed  her  squarely ;  she  averted 
her  face,  still  prodding  in  the  gravel  as  if  her  words  were 
buried  there  and  she  would  unearth  them. 

"  Come  now,  would  you  care?  "  he  asked. 

"  Don't  be  sentimental !  " 

"  Sentimental  to  ask  if  you  would  care  if  I  were  killed  ?  " 

"Of  course  it  is,  when  you  know  I  would — anybody 
would." 

"  Humph,"  he  growled.  His  arm  had  strayed  in  a  trifling 
proximity  to  her  shoulder,  his  protective  instinct  stirred  by 
the  very  sorrow  he  himself  had  caused  her.  She  moved  away. 

"  You  don't  expect  me  to  cry  my  eyes  out,  do  you,  after 
you  insulted  Bruce  that  way?  He's  the  most  unselfish  of 
men.  I  could " 

"  Yes,"  he  interrupted,  hoping  to  appease  her,  "  it  seems 
to  me  that  I  read  something  to  that  effect  in  one  of  the  papers. 
I  guess,  though,  that  all  brothers  are  unselfish  and  noble  and 
all  that.  I  often  wish  I  had  a  sister." 

"  You  don't  deserve  one." 

"  That's  perfectly  true.  I  don't  suppose  she  would  know 
what  to  make  out  of  me  any  more  than  anybody  else  does." 

"You  are  hard  to  make  out;  and  that's  the  reason, 
maybe,  why  it's  hard  for  you  to  make  others  out.  You  don't 
understand  Bruce." 

"  I  don't  know  that  I  want  to  understand  him;  I  don't 
care  for  characters  that  are  too  transparent.  It's  like — well, 

269 


THE   RADICAL 

I  tried  to  paint  up  in  Duluth  once,  and  I  had  to  give  it  up ; 
the  atmosphere  was  too  clear,  too  translucent;  everything 
stands  out  too  rigidly;  there's  no  shadow,  no  shade  to  the 
objects;  and  that's  the  way  it  is  with  people  to  my  notion; 
if  they  haven't  streaks  of  contradiction  and  shadows  they're 
not  interesting." 

But  Elaine  would  not  be  shunted  aside  from  her  purpose ; 
and  she  put  Bruce's  character  before  R.  R.  lovingly,  albeit 
with  vigor  and  enthusiasm. 

"  Well,  I  apologize,"  he  said  meekly;  "  I  apologize  hon 
estly  and  sincerely." 

"  And  I  accept  it  in  the  same  spirit,"  she  replied. 

He  heaved  an  inward  sigh  of  relief — all  quarreling  on 
that  score  was  over;  so  much  talk;  so  little  done  and  the 
whole  morning  and  its  fine  light  for  work  gone  to  the  dogs ; 
still  it  was  well  wasted,  he  tried  to  console  himself;  it  had 
been  spent  with  her  and  she  appealed  to  him ;  she  sympathized 
with  his  aims — had  she  not  told  him  so  that  morning? — and 
she  admired  the  sincerity  and  constancy  with  which  he  clung 
to  his  ideals. 


270 


CHAPTER   IX 

THE    HOMAGE   OF   HYPOCRISY 

HONESTY,  seeking  converts  to  its  cause,  lent  to  Frank 
lin  De  Wolfe  Fiske  a  bundle  of  manuscript  devoted 
to  certain  phases  of  the  Shaw  Coal  and  Oil  bill,  over 
which  it  had  moiled  with  the  zeal  that  only  the  missionary 
spirit  knows.     Fiske,  his  own  mind  now  made  up  beyond  the 
peradventure  of  a  doubt  as  to  the  enormity  of  the  swindle, 
gave  back  the  tracts  without  a  word  of  comment. 

When  the  proselyting  documents  were  returned,  Bruce 
searched  the  papers  in  ardent  quest  for  the  one  sheet — cap 
tain  over  the  manuscript — that  summed  up  in  brief  form  the 
net  results  of  the  entire  investigation.  Repeated  search 
failed  to  reveal  its  place  in  the  ranks  or  at  the  head  of  the 
imposing  array  of  documents.  It  was  his  own  carelessness 
rather  than  the  desertion  of  the  trusted  one,  he  charged,  that 
failed  to  discover  it.  But  it  often  happens  that  those  who 
seek  for  one  thing  find  another;  so,  as  Bruce  anxiously  fin 
gered  leaf  after  leaf  of  this  much-studied  manuscript,  he 
became  conscious  of  the  delicate  scent,  unfolding  like  a  flower, 
of  rose  leaves  crushed. 

Bruce's  thoughts,  despite  himself,  wandered  away  from 
the  dull  statistical  tables  and  surveyors'  reports  to  this  fra 
grance  that  sent  a  challenge  to  his  memory  by  way  of  his 
nostrils.  Finally,  as  if  the  challenger  had  given  a  fillip  to  his 
memory  by  tweaking  his  nose,  it  dawned  upon  him  that  this 

271 


THE  RADICAL 

was  the  attar  of  roses,  which  had  been  culled  from  the  fields 
of  Omar's  land  and  been  delivered  in  person  by  the  direct 
representative  of  the  Shah  of  all  the  Persias  to  Georgia  Fiske 
Ten  Eyck. 

On  the  wings  of  the  fragrance  his  thoughts  were  wafted 
backward  to  that  dinner  at  the  Hammersmiths',  and  he  re 
called  how  his  recollection  of  the  events  of  that  night  came 
to  a  close  with  Georgia  in  the  arms  of  Sydney  P.  Shaw.  So 
with  a  full  orchestra  of  all  instruments  may  a  quiet  music 
be  brought  to  a  clangorous  silence! 

The  conclusion  was  easy  enough,  even  for  duller  wits. 
Georgia's  nimble  fingers  had  handled  those  documents  meant 
only  for  her  father's  ruder  clasp.  But  why  had  she  done 
this?  He  gave  himself  over  to  reflection,  consideration  of 
all  else  dying  out  of  his  mind  as  the  gray  died  out  of  his 
glittering  eyes,  but  at  the  end  of  an  hour  he  was  only  lost 
the  deeper  in  the  labyrinth  of  his  own  construction. 

The  puzzle  absorbed  him,  and  his  life  for  that  week 
would  have  been  lived  within  the  walls  of  self,  dead  to  action 
and  the  outer  world,  were  not  a  play  spectacular  in  effects, 
inimical  to  dreams,  going  on  in  the  Senate.  For  it  was  dur 
ing  one  of  those  days,  crowded  with  incident,  that  the  Mc 
Allister  Anti-Child  Labor  bill  came  up  and  passed  by  a 
large  majority.  Popular  clamor,  the  fires  of  which  were 
fanned  to  flames  by  the  excitement  of  a  whole  people,  had 
aroused  the  Olympian  senators,  careless  of  mankind,  to 
action  at  last. 

As  guile  and  craft,  which  had  opposed  Bruce  with  every 
known  parliamentary  shift,  burned  incense  before  the  altars 
of  guilelessness,  our  hero  was  naturally  more  dumfounded 
than  elated.  The  gods,  reading  the  hearts  of  the  Pharisees, 
frowned  none  the  less  when  the  hypocritical  incense  arose 
skyward.  And  Bruce,  far  less  divine  than  human,  looked 

272 


THE  HOMAGE  OF  HYPOCRISY 

to  the  left  hands  of  his  enemies  now  that  they  proffered  the 
right.  He  gazed  inquiringly  around  the  Senate.  Scarcely 
a  face  in  it  was  radiant  with  the  joy  of  victory,  not  a  one 
wore  a  visage  gloomy  with  the  lines  carved  by  defeat.  The 
great  battle  had  been  fought ;  the  great  battle  had  been  won ; 
and  its  soldiery  sat  there  indifferent,  as  if  a  signal  to  advance 
had  not  been  given,  and  would  never  be  blown  through  the 
mouth  of  a  challenging  trumpet.  The  mills  of  legislation, 
grinding  its  endless  grist  automatically  as  silently,  absorbed 
them  all. 

What  signified  it?  What  meant  this  scene,  exposed 
voluntarily,  designedly,  to  the  view  of  an  applauding  public 
too  easily  diverted.  Our  hero,  finding  short  surcease  from  a 
compelling  puzzle,  is  brought  face  to  face  with  the  sphinx 
of  sealed  lips.  But  the  seal  on  the  lips  is  broken  and  the 
sphinx  speaks. 

"  Ah,"  he  murmured  to  himself  softly,  "  so  that's  it!  " 

His  swarthy  face  lighted  as  if  struck  by  a  shaft  of  sun 
beams;  in  their  full  grayness  his  eyes  glittered.  His  legs  un 
locked,  ready  to  carry  him  with  a  lunge  to  his  feet.  Retro 
spection  seized  him  and  lifted  him,  scornful  of  places,  to  that 
old-fashioned  garden  of  the  Polish  embassy,  and  that  perfect 
night,  dropped  like  a  jewel  out  of  the  hand  of  spring,  and 
in  his  ears  again  came  Inez's  voice  saying  the  truth  un 
willingly: 

"I  heard  Justice  Addams  say:  'I  don't  think  the  Su 
preme  Court  will  countenance  it.  We  are  trespassing  too 
violently  on  individual  rights  in  this  country.  The  parents 
ought  to  decide  whether  their  children  are  to  work 
or  not.'  " 

So  that  was  it!  The  Supreme  Court  would  declare  his 
bill  unconstitutional.  It  was  to  be  battledored  and  shuttle- 
cocked  for  the  amusement  of  a  dissatisfied  people,  until  other 

273 


THE   RADICAL 

interests  claimed  their  flagging  attention  and  its  very  exist 
ence  had  been  forgotten. 

Bruce  sat  in  quiet,  the  minister  of  his  mood,  deaf  to  the 
roar  of  the  mills  of  legislation  grinding  out  the  endless  grist 
of  measures  that  zealous  senators  had  poured  into  the  hop 
pers,  fearful  lest  the  speeding  moment  take  opportunity  away. 


274 


CHAPTER   X 

BEHIND   CLOSED   DOORS 

THE  long  dinner  was  over  finally — in  this  spirit  some 
day  perhaps  the  last  bored  mortal  shall  greet  the  end 
of  the  world — and  Bruce  McAllister  drew  what  is 
physiologically  known  as  a  sigh  of  relief.  He  was  freed  now 
from  the  prolonged  conversation  of  that  soporific  lady,  Mrs. 
Van  Twyne,  the  author.  Of  her  it  has  been  said  that  she 
went  to  bed  unknown  and  awoke  famous;  and  many  in  the 
world  regretted  that  she  had  not  been  allowed  to  sleep  on. 
She  herself  wore  a  sad  look  as  if  lamenting  the  fact  that  they 
had  called  her  too  soon. 

In  the  drawing-room  Inez  came  to  Bruce's  rescue  while 
the  authoress  tried  to  engage  Secretary  Scarborough  in  a  con 
versation  on  Egyptian  inscriptions,  a  subject  in  which  that 
great  man  was  as  interested  and  about  which  he  knew  as 
much  as  of  modern  sociology.  The  moment  opportunity 
cleared  the  way  Inez  said  to  Bruce  hurriedly : 

"  Georgia  is  deeply  interested  in  the  Shaw  Coal  and  Oil 
Lands  bill." 

"  I  know,"  he  nodded. 

"How?" 

He  told  her  of  the  trail  left  behind  by  the  perfumed 
papers. 

"  But  my  evidence  is  more  direct.  She  has  been  question 
ing  me  adroitly  several  times  during  this  last  week  to  pump 
me  to  find  out  what  you  thought  and  knew  about  the  bill." 

275 


THE  RADICAL 

"And  you  told  her?" 

"  Nothing." 

"  We  are  no  nearer ;  she  merely  acts  in  Sydney's  interest 
and  he  in  Anthony's." 

Inez  dropped  her  voice  still  lower.  "  But  she  fears  you. 
She  knows  you  suspect  that  something  is  not  as  it  should 
be.  She  begged  me  as  indirectly  as  she  could  to  use  my  in 
fluence  with  you.  She  is  nervous  and  high-wrought,  and  you 
know  how  calm  she  usually  is." 

"  What  aroused  her  suspicion?  " 

"  A  hint  her  father  dropped.  Don't  ask  me  any  more, 
will  you?  I'm  not  particularly  proud  of  how  I  came  by  that 
last  bit  of  knowledge." 

He  was  about  to  persist  when  Georgia  and  Fiske  drew 
near.  Bruce  and  Inez,  detecting  that  odor,  faint,  flowerlike. 
as  of  rose  leaves  crushed,  glanced  involuntarily  at  each  other. 
The  golden  Georgia  wondered  what  that  look  betokened. 
Fiske  drawled  out  suddenly : 

"  I  don't  know,  McAllister,  but  that  it  would  be  the  right 
thing  for  you  to  honestly  earn  a  dollar's  worth  of  your  salary 
before  the  day  ends  by  coming  into  my  library  with  me  to 
explain  several  of  the  facts  you  jotted  down  in  the  last  bunch 
of  papers  you  lent  me  about  this  confounded  Shaw  Coal  and 
Oil  Lands  bill.  You're  here  now  and  you're  not  apt  to  be 
in  so  good  a  place  to-morrow  at  this  time." 

Bruce  assented.  Fiske  mumbled  incoherent  words  to  the 
effect  that  he  was  rapidly  getting  at  an  age  where  each  of 
his  steps  was  worth  as  much  to  him  as  each  of  his  words 
would  be  to  posterity,  and  they  passed  under  the  stairs 
through  the  large  closet  that  led  into  the  library.  The  room 
seemed  as  ironical  and  inscrutable  as  Fiske  himself.  Your  li 
brary  is  your  man ! 

"  Well,  McAllister,"  he  drawled,  stepping  over  a  tiger 
276 


BEHIND  CLOSED  DOORS 

rug  toward  the  long  oak  table  on  which  a  pile  of  papers  and 
magazines  in  all  languages  and  from  all  countries  towered 
'Babel-like  toward  the  ceiling,  "  I  searched  all  through  my 
desk  for  the  summary  that  was  lost  from  the  last  bundle  of 
coal  and  oil  documents  you  lent  me  and  I  can't  find  it." 

"  I  wouldn't  bother  about  it,  Fiske ;  I  can  draw  up 
another."  Bruce  made  no  doubt  but  that  summary  was 
now  one  of  the  valued  possessions  of  Sydney  P.  Shaw. 

"  It  will  turn  up,  I'm  sure,"  he  went  on.  "  I  might  have 
known  without  wading  through  the  bundle  of  evidence  that 
anything  in  which  Shaw  plunges  his  hand  was  crooked ;  still 
it's  a  trifle  more  artistic  to  actually  establish  him  a  thief  than 
to  merely  guess  at  his  complicity." 

Talking  thus,  one  lobe  of  his  brain  occupied  in  calling 
up  the  pictures  that  his  words  suggested,  another  lobe  of  his 
massive  intellect  suddenly  hinted  to  Fiske  that  he  had  left  a 
compartment  of  his  heavy  desk  unsearched,  and  marching 
over  to  the  corner  of  the  room  where  it  stood,  he  unlocked 
and  pulled  down  its  broad  leaf.  Bruce,  turning  to  watch 
him,  thought  that  the  light-woven  Senna  Kelim  rug,  hanging 
like  a  piece  of  drapery  over  the  shut  closet  door,  fluttered, 
and  he  observed  rather  vaguely  that  the  door  itself,  which 
had  been  tightly  closed  when  he  entered  the  room,  was  open 
just  enough  to  be  perceptible  now. 

It  was  at  about  this  moment  when  Georgia  Fiske  Ten 
Eyck  stepped  lightly  inside  of  the  closet;  and  it  was  only  a 
few  seconds  later  when  Inez  Hammersmith,  having  seen  the 
movement  executed  with  serpentine  grace  and  circumspection, 
and  having  guessed  its  purpose,  tiptoed  forward  and  turned 
the  outside  lock  of  the  door. 

"  The  capacity  for  disappearance  possessed  by  inanimate 
objects,"  drawled  Fiske,  still  rummaging  within  the  depths 
of  the  desk,  "  impresses  one  quite  as  much  as  the  capacity 

277 


THE   RADICAL 

of  women  for  slipping  into  places  where  their  husbands  might 
least  expect  to  find  them." 

"  I  probably  lost  the  thing  myself;  don't  worry.  It's  in 
consequential.  I  can  get  another  drawn  up  with  half  the 
work  that  it  will  take  you  to  find  it." 

They  sat  down  beside  the  table  on  which  Fiske  recklessly 
cleared  a  space  by  thrusting  to  one  side  a  base  of  his  Babel 
tower  and  they  fell  to  a  discussion  of  mooted  points.  Bruce 
explaining  Fiske's  questions  with  an  emphatic  thumb,  re 
mained  silent  for  a  second  or  two,  reflecting,  and  then  he  said 
with  the  suddenness  of  inspiration: 

"  There's  a  mistake,  I  think,  in  that  last  table  of  figures. 
My  stenographer  must  have  made  it.  If  that's  wrong,  of 
course  the  whole  chart  is  wrong.  If  you  have  the  Secretary 
of  the  Interior's  report  for  this  last  year  I  should  like  to 
verify  the  total.  I  must  make  certain  of  my  foundation 
before  I  build  higher." 

"  I  have  the  report  in  the  annex  to  my  library  in  the  back 
room  upstairs.  I'll  send  the  man  after  it.  No,  I'll  be  my 
own  hero  and  valet  in  this  instance  and  get  it  myself,"  and 
conforming  his  movements  to  his  words,  Fiske  lifted  his  mas 
sive  body  out  of  the  chair  and  strode  up  the  stairs. 

A  noise,  barely  audible,  like  that  of  a  vowel  sound  long 
drawn  out  attracted  Bruce's  attention;  turning  he  saw  Inez 
Hammersmith  standing  a  few  feet  inside  the  room,  just  re 
moved  from  the  threshold,  her  finger  laid  ominously  across 
her  sealed  lips.  She  pointed  to  the  closet  door  and  vanished 
— to  give  herself  time  to  think  over  what  she  had  done,  now 
that  it  had  been  done. 

Bruce  arose  stealthily.  The  closet  door  was  shut,  the 
space  between  itself  and  the  oak  frame  had  disappeared.  His 
sensitive  nostrils  detected  the  faint  delicate  aroma,  flowerlike, 
as  of  rose  leaves  crushed.  He  laid  a  sudden  hand  on  the 

278 


BEHIND   CLOSED  DOORS 

bronze  knob,  turning  it  adroitly.  It  was  evident  that  a  force 
on  the  inside  was  resisting  him.  His  long,  lank  frame  pulled 
with  all  the  strength  it  possessed. 

The  golden  Georgia,  all  ashamed,  her  face  covered  with 
her  hands,  stood  revealed.  A  glance  and  he  fathomed  the 
situation. 

"  I'm  at  your  mercy,"  she  gasped,  her  eyes  seeking  the 
floor. 

"  And  the  merciful  shall  be  blessed,"  he  answered. 

Her  crushed,  humbled  form,  raising  itself  erect  and  dom 
inant,  expressed  her  gratitude.  "  And  the  least  of  the  mercy 
that  I  ask  is  for  myself."  Music  graced  her  voice  again. 

"And  the  other?" 

"  Ah,  senator,  you  know." 

He  thought  a  second.     "  Yes,  I  know." 

"  And  you  will  grant  him  mercy,  too?  "  Her  voice  was 
impassioned,  eager,  aglow  with  warmth.  She  pressed  closer 
to  him;  he  caught  the  flesh  thrill  of  her  bare  shoulders,  her 
deep  breast. 

"  In  so  far  as  I  can  be.  What  does  your  idea  of  mercy 
imply?" 

The  diplomacy  acquired  by  a  lifelong  residence  in  Wash 
ington  hinted  that  to  her  the  quality  of  mercy  would  not  be 
strained  if  he  did  no  more  than  withdraw  his  objections  to 
the  passage  of  the  Shaw  Coal  and  Oil  bill. 

His  swarthy  face  hid  like  a  mask  the  thought  going  on 
behind  it.  "  But  why  are  you  so  troubled?  The  bill  only 
concerns  Sir  Anthony  and  his  fortunes.  My  efforts  are  only 
leveled  against  him." 

"Ah,  senator,  why  torture  me?  You  know  better. 
Our  secret  and  our  fate  are  in  your  hands.  You  are  only 
waiting  for  the  sensational  moment  to  expose  our  part  in  the 
Excelsior." 

279 


THE   RADICAL 

"Your  part?" 

"  Again  the  thumbscrews,  senator !  Would  you  have  me 
scream  with  pain  ?  Our  part !  Yes,  our  part !  " 

Intuition  stalked  to  his  aid.  "  Yes,  I  knew  your  fortunes 
and  WyckofFs  were  severed." 

"  Ever  since  we  organized  the  Excelsior." 

"  But  if  you  were  merely  concerned  alone " 

"  It  is  idle  to  discuss  that.  What  is,  is.  His  fate  and 
mine  are  one.  Listen !  "  Rapidly,  perfervidly,  from  a 
throat  whose  pulse  beat  could  be  seen  with  every  word,  she 
laid  her  future  before  him  in  the  shape  of  an  allegory  that 
hurry  and  fear  wove  together  in  the  stress  of  the  moment. 
Stripped  of  superficial  symbolism  it  meant  that  if  the  bill 
passed  she  was  to  cease  being  Shaw's  mistress  and  become 
his  wife.  She  stood  at  the  crossways,  fate  lingering  there 
with  her,  undecided  in  which  direction  to  point.  He  could 
influence  it. 

"  No,"  he  answered  inviolably. 

Her  white  arms  rocked  toward  him  as  if  involuntarily; 
her  warm  breath  was  on  his  cheek,  and  her  lips  close  to  his 
poured  forth  her  plea  with  all  the  ardor  and  the  passion  of 
which  she  was  capable.  Beauty,  wit,  the  attractiveness  of 
sex,  pleaded  with  her.  It  was  test  for  the  iron  in  the  soul  of 
the  man. 

"  No,"  came  his  unchangeable  answer;  "  no." 

The  voice  that  he  believed  had  touched  the  very  climax 
of  passion  and  of  seductiveness,  reaching  the  highest  point 
of  appeal  that  a  woman  can  make  to  a  man,  passed  above  it 
with  supreme  ease.  The  step  of  Fiske  was  heard  on  the 
stairs  over  the  sloping  closet  wall,  and  Bruce  was  thankful 
to  the  beneficence  of  his  destiny  for  the  sound. 

"  Your  father  comes,"  he  whispered. 

She  shuddered.     He  pointed  her  into  the  closet. 
280 


BEHIND   CLOSED  DOORS 

When  Fiske  entered  the  room,  Bruce  in  careless  posture, 
his  hands  in  his  pockets,  was  standing  near  the  door. 

A  half  hour  later  Bruce  walked  beside  Inez  on  her  way 
to  the  carriage.  Her  mother  and  father  lingered  in  the 
warm  night  on  the  stoop  above  to  chat  with  Fiske. 

"  Thanks  to  you,"  he  said,  "  I  found  out  everything — 
all."  He  shared  with  her  the  secret,  holding  back  nothing. 

"  I  feel  contrite,  half  ashamed  of  my  own  share  in  it. 
Under  the  excitement  of  the  moment  one  does  these  things, 
to  regret  them  afterwards." 

"  She  was  eavesdropping." 

"  I  took  that  into  consideration  even  in  my  haste." 

"  You  must  have  loved  me  to  have  done  it  ?  " 

"  No,  the  love  of  intrigue,  the  excitement  of  the 
game " 

"  But  you  knew  what  it  meant  to  me.  You  would  never 
have  gone  so  far  if  love  had  not  led  you  on."  He  peered 
deeply  into  the  limpid  brown  eyes  of  her  beautiful  face. 

"  Hush,  Bruce  McAllister,  hush !  My  father  and  mother 
are  but  a  step  behind  you." 


19  281 


CHAPTER   XI 

THE   ORDEAL 

RR.  DICKINSON,  with  the  illogical  impetuousness 
%  that  characterized  all  his  conduct,  gave  to  Elaine 
McAllister  one  day  the  condemnatory  documents 
that  he  had  received  from  Doc  Scollard,  and  quite  naturally- 
Elaine  put  them  into  Bruce's  hands  no  sooner  than  they 
came  into  her  own,  which  happened  to  be  an  hour  or  so 
after  his  return  from  the  eventful  dinner  at  Fiske's.  A 
glance  proved  their  importance  to  Bruce.  One  of  the  papers 
that  Scollard  had  abstracted  from  Shaw's  desk,  and  which 
he  had  intrusted  to  the  artist,  was  Shaw's  own  prospectus 
of  the  Excelsior  Developing  Company,  with  the  original 
notes  of  the  astute  author ;  all  of  which  served  to  strengthen 
the  conclusion  Bruce  had  drawn  from  Georgia's  enforced 
confession  to  him.  Guilt,  like  a  detective,  tapped  Shaw  on 
the  shoulder,  complacently  mocking  at  his  protestations  of 
innocence. 

In  the  morning  he  telephoned  to  Inez,  hinting  at  the  im 
portant  discovery. 

"  I  have  something  to  say,  too,  that  is  important — for 
me,"  she  returned.  "  Can't  you  come  over  this  afternoon 
for  a  while?  " 

That  afternoon  found  him  in  the  Hammersmith  library, 
love  always  going  before  business  in  this  world — when  the 
business  happens  to  be  the  nation's.  In  that  room,  nestled 

282 


THE   ORDEAL 

in  the  soothing  quietude  of  its  deep  rich  colors,  a  curiosity, 
restless  and  out  of  harmony  with  its  surroundings,  sat  there 
with  him.  There  had  been  in  the  very  inflection  of  her  voice 
that  morning,  rather  than  in  the  words  she  spoke,  a  promise 
of  the  unusual. 

Her  presence,  superb  and  vital  as  a  nymph  rising  from 
invigorating  waters,  beamed  upon  him.  He  had  expected 
that  she  would  meet  him  as  it  were  with  open  arms,  reck 
oning  without  a  nature  that  was  chary  of  concessions  and 
which  was  prone  to  make  a  recipient  of  one  of  them  humbly 
appreciative  before  he  received  another. 

Moreover,  there  was  something  in  the  wind  that  even 
his  keen  intuition  could  not  detect.  The  sprite,  implacable 
enemy  of  mankind,  whose  peculiar  business  it  is  to  litter 
love's  path  with  obstacles  and  make  it  difficult,  had  been 
busy  during  the  interval  of  their  last  meeting  of  the  night 
before  and  the  present  moment.  For  Inez  had  learned  from 
her  mother's  unguarded  confession  that  her  father's  invest 
ment  in  the  Excelsior  Developing  Company  had  not  only 
been  serious  but  excessive.  She  knew  enough  of  business 
to  conclude  that  defeat  for  the  Shaw  bill  might  bring  ruin 
to  her  father,  and  she  was  appalled  at  the  part  her  fascination 
for  the  mere  game  itself,  and  her  love  for  'Bruce,  had  be 
trayed  her  into  playing. 

She  expected  that  Bruce  would  come  to  her  rescue  now 
in  quite  the  same  spirit  that  she  had  come  to  his,  and  the 
mere  thought  that  he  might  refuse  his  assistance  made  her 
tremble  inwardly.  She  could  put  herself  in  perfect  accord 
with  his  position  on  the  importance  of  those  acres  remain 
ing  in  possession  of  the  Government;  she  knew  what  it 
meant  to  him  and  what  it  might  mean  to  those  theories 
he  held  so  dear.  But  none  the  less  friendship  was  friend 
ship,  and  one  sacrifice  ought  to  be  free  to  call  upon  another. 

283 


THE   RADICAL 

In  the  future,  to  which  she  had  been  accustomed  to  confide 
all  her  petty  troubles,  another  opportunity  quite  as  great 
would  arise  for  him,  and  for  her  sake  he  ought  to  hold  his 
fervor  in  temporary  abeyance. 

He  started  to  preface  his  discovery  with  an  amatory 
by-play;  she  checked  it  with  a  light  phrase  or  two,  as  out 
of  keeping  with  the  occasion  and  with  honesty  itself,  since 
she  approached  him  to-day  on  a  different  footing.  So, 
at  any  rate,  had  the  sprite  inspired  her  to  think  and  speak 
from  its  invisible  prompter's  box. 

He  confided  the  nature  of  his  secret,  laying  stress  on 
its  value  as  indisputable  evidence  to  impeach  Shaw  and  his 
bill  when  the  one  brought  forward  the  other  in  the  Senate. 
The  shadow  on  his  swarthy  face  deepened,  he  shook  a  long 
and  nervous  leg,  and  even  enthusiasm  itself  waned  and  died 
before  her  indifference.  She  noticed  it  and  her  sympathy 
went  out  to  him,  but  she  said,  forcing  herself  to  speak  com 
posedly  as  the  imp  dictated: 

"  I  know  you  find  me  indifferent ;  I  am  sorry  that  I  must 
be  so;  but  I  am  sorrier  still  that  the  telling  evidence  has 
fallen  into  your  hands." 

Speechless  a  second  he  looked  at  her,  his  blue-gray  eyes 
aglitter.  "  Why?  "  he  brought  forth  at  last,  the  only  word 
he  could  find  to  express  the  jumble  of  queries  that  welled 
to  his  lips. 

"  I  may  need  your  help  for  the  other  side." 

Rigidly  he  confronted  her,  the  blood  coursing  cold 
through  his  veins.  "  I  don't  understand !  Which  side  ?  " 

"  My  father's  side,  which  happens  to  be  Shaw's  now. 
Listen !  "  She  stood  upright  before  him,  her  eyes  fixed  be 
seechingly  on  his.  "  I  told  you  some  time  ago  in  this  very 
house,  that  in  return  for  my  assistance,  I  might  call  upon 
you  for  yours." 

284 


THE  ORDEAL 

"  I  remember  perfectly.  You  were  indefinite  and  I  tried 
to  make  you  more  definite." 

"  The  nature  of  the  case  forced  me  to  be  indefinite," 
she  said.  "  I  was  not  sure  then  whether  or  not  my  father 
had  made  the  investment.  But  you  promised." 

"  Yes,"  his  long  thin  lips  drew  together,  tightening  into 
a  knot.  His  thoughts  leaped  far  out  beyond  his  words,  seek 
ing  strength  in  the  resolution  built  up  by  the  ideals  of  a 
lifetime. 

"You  will  keep  it,  then?" 

He  stooped,  bringing  his  shoulders  down  to  a  level  with 
hers.  "  What  did  I  promise  exactly  ?  " 

"  Your  assistance,  even  as  I  gave  mine." 

He  nodded.     "  But  what  do  you  want  it  for?  " 

"  I  want,"  she  said,  faltering  over  her  words  despite 
herself,  "  to  save  my  father  from  ruin — a  ruin  which  I 
helped  plunge  him  into  in  order  to  help  you — I  want 
you  to  vote  for  the  Shaw  bill  and  use  your  influence  in  its 
favor." 

"Oh,  I  can't  do  that!  I  won't  do  that!  Much  as  I 
love  you,  I  can't  do  that!"  His  tortured  spirit  groaned. 
"  It's  not  fair !  It's  not  just !  I  made  the  promise  on  the 
spur  of  the  moment,  not  caring  or  knowing  to  what  I  bound 
myself.  Now  I  find  that  unwittingly  I  bound  myself  to 
something  that  involves  my  honor.  Under  the  circumstances 
a  promise  of  that  kind  is  absolved  by  the  very  terms  upon 
which  it  was  made.  I  was  willing  to  promise  anything  in 
the  world  to  you;  to  do  anything  in  the  world  for  you; 
and  I  still  am — anything  in  the  world  you  ask — but  my 
honor  remains  my  own." 

"  It's  a  conventional  way  of  breaking  a  promise.  As 
far  back  as  my  reading  goes,  men  have  sought  to  save  their 
honor  at  the  expense  of  their  word." 

285 


THE  RADICAL 

"  So  be  it!    I  cannot!    I  cannot." 

"  But  it's  a  mere  sentiment  with  you  as  against  my 
father's  life  work.  A  mere  sentiment !  " 

"  I'm  sorry;  I'm  sorry  as  I  can  be  that  your  father  was 
drawn  into  that  unfortunate  scheme;  and  all  I  have,  any 
thing  else " 

"Phrases!    Empty  phrases !" 

It  was  her  power  over  him,  and  not  the  justice  of  her 
cause,  that  she  felt  challenged  now,  and  the  unsuccessful 
pleader  made  way  for  the  woman  spurned. 

"  If  you  think  them  phrases,  put  me  to  the  test.  I  ask 
nothing  better." 

"  I  have  put  you  to  the  test  and  you  have  failed.  I 
risked  much  for  you;  I  did  things  for  you  that  I  should 
not  have  done,  and  now  I  ask  a  small  sacrifice  from 
you " 

"  But  I  am  not  my  own  master." 

"  Nonsense !  A  man  of  your  strength  of  character  not 
his  own  master!  " 

"  There  are  some  things  in  this  world  stronger  than  we 
are.  Honor  is  one  of  them." 

"  Friendship  is  another,  and  I  cannot  remain  friends  with 
one  on  whom  I  cannot  rely  always  and  ever." 

"You  are  cruel,  Inez;  you  are  unjust." 

Her  pink  cheeks  flushed  to  red.  Life,  denying  her  noth 
ing  so  far,  had  spoiled  her.  Her  pride  was  bruised  to  the 
core  by  the  refusal  to  yield  her  anything  on  the  part  of 
this  one  man  to  whom  she  had  granted  so  much.  Inwardly 
she  felt  a  rush  of  uncontrollable  anger  sweep  over  her,  as 
when  a  petulant  child  she  had  stamped  her  foot. 

"  You  shall  not  call  me  Inez,"  she  said.  "  I  will  not 
permit  it.  It  is  an  assumption." 

He  turned  to  leave  the  room ;  she  wanted  to  call  out  to 
286 


THE   ORDEAL 


him  but  she  could  not — something  in  her  stronger  than  her 
self  had  her  by  the  throat. 

A  moment  afterwards  the  sprite,  bounding  head  over 
heels  in  the  sheer  exuberance  of  delight,  made  mows  at  a 
beautiful  woman,  kneeling  on  the  floor,  her  face  on  the  divan, 
crying. 


287 


CHAPTER   XII 

JUST    A    WORD 

ON  the  morning  of  the  last  day  of  the  short  session 
Sydney  P.  Shaw  arose  as  jubilant  from  his  bed  as 
the  sun  out  of  the  clouds.     He  had  been  promised 
more  than  enough  votes  to  pass  his  bill  and  all  was  in  readi 
ness  in  Wall  Street  to  assure  success  for  the  Excelsior  Devel 
oping  Company.     A  careful  inspection  of  the  scheme  in  its 
entirety  showed  not  a  single  detail  that  refused  to  dovetail 
with  the  other  details  to  which  it  had  been  fitted. 

The  danger,  had  Sydney  and  his  captains  of  finance 
but  known  it,  threatened  no  one  particular,  but  the 
whole  gigantic  scheme.  Sir  Anthony  satisfied  long  ago  of 
Shaw's  duplicity  and  treachery,  angry  beyond  words,  lay  in 
waiting  with  his  powerful  craft  to  wreck  the  whole  em 
prise.  Anthony  had  learned  long  ago  that  leisure  is  the 
better  part  of  vengeance,  and  he  resolved  to  sink  the  Excel 
sior  first  and  to  make  its  treacherous  admiral  walk  the  plank 
afterwards.  Once  sunk  it  would  be  easy  to  hoist  the  Ex 
celsior  out  of  the  water,  give  it  a  different  name  and  add 
it  as  another  first-class  craft  to  the  huge  flotilla  of  the 
Universal. 

To  put  the  same  idea  in  Anthony's  more  direct  way,  he 
purposed  to  have  the  Senate  veto  Shaw's  Coal  and  Oil  bill 
in  order  that  Shaw  and  his  abettors  might  have  their  ex 
quisite  pains  for  their  trouble.  Later  on,  biding  a  favorable 

288 


JUST  A   WORD 


hour,  he  would  have  a  new  bill  introduced  to  give  him  the 
exclusive  right  of  annexing  this  land  to  his  own  properties. 

To  defeat  Shaw,  to  whom  many  votes  had  been  promised, 
Sir  Anthony  stood  in  need  of  Bruce  McAllister  and  the  in 
fluence  and  sentiment  that  Bruce  might  yield.  Therefore, 
word  reached  Bruce  indirectly  that  if  he  wished  to  form  a 
treaty  of  alliance  with  the  forces  opposed  to  the  Shaw  Coal 
and  Oil  Lands  bill  he  might  meet  them  on  this  last  morn 
ing  of  the  short  session  at  the  hotel  Rhodomontade.  Bruce, 
of  course,  surmised  that  the  invitation  emanated  from  Sir 
Anthony,  and  a  little  fearful  that  he  never  might  leave  Troy 
with  character  unstained  if  he  entered  it  by  way  of  the 
wooden  horse  of  Anthony's  contrivance,  he  held  long  parley 
with  the  far-sighted  Butler.  It  was  in  accord  with  Butler's 
theory  of  political  warfare  that  a  small  battalion,  when  em 
ployed  against  one  of  first-rate  dimensions,  must  venture  tre 
mendous  odds  if  it  would  have  a  victory.  He  advised  a 
signing  of  the  treaty. 

Bruce,  meanwhile,  preparing  to  enter  Sir  Anthony's  web, 
was  evolving  a  plan  whereby  he  might  break  its  entangling 
threads  and  weave  them  into  a  pattern  that  was  more  to 
his  own  liking. 

The  morning  found  him  pat  with  the  appointed  hour  in 
the  pillared  and  palmed  lobby  of  the  Rhodomontade.  The 
hotel,  as  anyone  may  see  in  its  advertisements,  was  constructed 
regardless  of  cost  and,  which  is  not  therein  stated,  regard 
less  of  taste.  It  had  been  the  purpose  of  the  management 
to  pave  the  floor  with  bright  patines  of  silver  dollars,  but 
at  the  last  minute  it  changed  its  lavish  mind  and  distributed 
its  gold  with  such  impartial  largess  that  one  might  see  the 
cost  of  things  not  only  written  on  the  floor  in  plain  figures 
but  everywhere  else.  Here  the  dollar  shrieked  far  louder 
through  a  gilt  trumpet  than  the  name  of  Bruce  McAllis- 

289 


THE   RADICAL 

ter,  whispered  by  the  clerk,  traveled  upstairs  through  the 
telephone. 

A  moment  afterwards  the  elevator  carried  him  to  the 
room  where  the  name  had  won  acceptance  for  the  man, 
and  our  hero  found  himself  in  an  apartment  that  was  fur 
nished  in  a  manner  exquisite  enough  to  have  won  the  com 
mendation  of  the  minister  sent  to  Washington  by  his  maj 
esty,  Mumbo  III,  of  Senegambia.  The  senators  in  waiting, 
so  famous  have  become  their  dignified,  grave,  white-bearded 
countenances,  need  no  introduction  now.  We  need  but  say 
that  at  Anthony's  behest  here  had  assembled  themselves,  with 
out  even  knowing  what  he  wanted,  the  woolen  senator,  the 
senator  who  carried  in  the  pockets  of  his  mines  sufficient 
coal  to  set  the  world  on  fire,  the  cotton  senator,  and — well, 
in  short,  here  was  convened,  one  might  say,  the  United  States 
Senate  and  its  president  ex-officio,  Sir  Anthony  Wyckoff. 

Salutations  befitting  the  solemnity  of  the  occasion  were 
exchanged  and  then  Sir  Anthony  called  the  Senate  to  order. 
The  Shaw  Coal  and  Oil  Lands  bill  was  discussed  by  Anthony 
and  flagellated  for  the  iniquity  of  each  of  its  separate  clauses. 
His  point  of  view  was  altruistic,  for  he  confined  his  argu 
ments  to  the  injury  the  measure  would  work  to  America. 
Nobody  understood  the  value  of  time  better  than  Anthony; 
he  had  done  before  the  second  hand  on  his  watch  had  cir 
cled  around  five  times. 

The  distinguished  woolen  senator,  arranging  his  white 
silken  whiskers,  took  longer  to  agree  with  Anthony  than 
Anthony  did  to  tell  him  to  what  he  should  agree.  In  the 
senator's  opinion  it  would  augur  ill  for  the  future  of  America 
to  allow  these  forty  millions  of  acres  to  slip  beyond  the 
country's  control.  It  was  a  powerful  weapon,  did  Govern 
ment  but  hold  on  to  it,  wherewith  monopoly  might  be  forced 
to  its  knees.  With  logic  so  square-based  none  could  disagree, 

290 


JUST  A   WORD 


and  there  was  a  shaking  of  distinguished  white  beards  breast- 
ward.  There  followed  a  few  speeches,  short  as  Sir  An 
thony's,  that  left  no  loophole  through  which  dissension  could 
stick  its  ugly  head.  The  pompous  senator,  whose  fetich  was 
corporation  and  who  had  made  some  of  its  laws  and  who 
upheld  all  of  them,  succinctly  outlined  a  course  of  action 
to  be  followed  in  the  Senate  that  afternoon,  for  like  a  wise 
general  skilled  in  the  cunning  of  parliamentary  procedure 
he  was  willing  to  leave  nothing  to  accident.  And  so  even 
before  a  gun  had  been  fired  was  Sydney's  battle  lost  for  him. 

Sir  Anthony,  his  business  being  done,  arose  nervously  and 
eyed  his  watch — it  brought  him  in  an  income  of  an  incred 
ible  number  of  thousands  with  every  movement  of  its  minute 
hand.  A  few  blocks  removed,  in  the  shed  of  the  Pennsyl 
vania  depot,  his  special  train,  puffing  steam  laboriously,  was 
waiting  to  carry  him  westward  to  close  a  gigantic  deal  for 
the  Universal.  The  magnate  put  his  arm  through  Bruce's 
with  a  compelling  affection,  his  bass  voice  rolling  forth 
organlike : 

"  Senator,  I  rejoice  that  you  can  conscientiously  be  with 
us;  certainly  we  feel  honored  to  have  you  ranged  on  our 
side." 

In  his  masterful  way  Sir  Anthony  moved  Bruce,  not 
heeding  where  he  went,  into  a  corner  and  out  of  earshot 
of  the  mass  of  senatorial  dignity,  and  he  said  to  him  with 
lowered  voice: 

"  I  have  something  here,  senator,  that  might  prove  of 
service  to  you  when  the  right  time  comes ;  "  and  his  small 
crosseyes  twinkling  humorously,  Sir  Anthony  drew  from 
his  pocket  a  long  white  envelope,  which  he  laid  in  Bruce's 
hand  confidingly  and  then,  glancing  again  at  his  watch, 
bade  his  adieu  and  hastened  to  catch  his  train. 

Bruce,  in  the  full  sight  of  all,  moved  under  the  heavy 
291 


THE  RADICAL 

electrolier  in  the  center  of  the  apartment  and  drew  forth 
the  missive  from  its  white  envelope  as  one  who  has  naught 
to  conceal.  It  was  the  synopsis  that  Georgia  had  purloined 
from  his  bundle  of  papers  and  given  to  Shaw.  Around  the 
border  of  the  square  sheet,  arabesquelike,  were  annotations 
in  her  fine  handwriting  and  marginalia  in  Shaw's  masculine 
script. 

Like  a  wise  archer  Sir  Anthony  carried  two  strings  to 
his  bow.  Bruce,  thinking  quickly  as  the  senators  about  to 
depart  lifted  their  silk  hats  from  the  table,  guessed  the  pur 
pose  of  the  second  string.  Shaw's  term  would  expire  at  the 
end  of  the  present  session,  and  Sir  Anthony  intended  to  chas 
tise  him  by  drawing  his  Senate  seat  from  under  him  and 
letting  him  fall  headlong  into  oblivion. 

To  revert  to  the  original  figure,  Anthony  had  come  to 
the  conclusion  that  Bruce,  having  the  advantage  of  posi 
tion,  could  use  the  second  string  to  better  advantage  than 
himself  in  shooting  the  arrow  that  would  slay  Shaw  politically. 
What  legislature,  defying  the  entire  people  of  a  State,  would 
dare  to  return  Shaw  to  the  Senate  after  such  damning  proofs 
of  his  guilt  were  made  public?  The  stately  woolen  senator 
had  his  hand  on  the  bronze  knob,  ready  to  step  into  the 
hallway  that  would  take  him  into  a  different  world,  when 
Bruce  McAllister,  thrusting  into  his  pocket  the  recovered 
synopsis,  said  suddenly: 

"  Gentlemen,  before  you  go  I  have  just  a  word  to  say 
that  will  interest  all  of  you." 

The  tall  lank  form  straightened,  a  certain  gravity  aure- 
oled  the  swarthy  face  and  the  black  hair,  and  a  certain  de 
termination  and  sternness  lent  the  aspect  of  importance  to 
his  coarse,  heavy  features.  The  silk  hats  renewed  acquaint 
ance  with  the  table.  Around  him  the  senators  formed  an 
expectant  circle. 

292 


JUST  A  WORD 


"  The  point,"  said  Bruce,  lifting  them  from  the  sharp 
edge  of  suspense,  "  is  here.  The  senator  from  Massachusetts 
remarked  that  if  the  Government  retained  possession  of  these 
forty  million  acres  that  it  would  have  an  excellent  weapon 
wherewith  to  fight  monopoly.  The  Government,  it  is  clear, 
will  thus  be  enabled  to  go  into  the  coal  and  oil  business  on 
its  own  account,  and  by  competition  force  a  greedy  monopoly 
to  sell  at  cheaper  prices." 

The  senators  were  disappointed  and  they  looked  it. 
Bruce  had  promised  a  surprise  and  he  scarcely  had  kept 
his  word  by  this  phonographic  recording  of  what  already 
had  been  said.  He  spoke  on,  interpreting  their  emotion  from 
their  glances. 

"  Now,  then,  all  of  you  agreed  with  the  senator,  and 
knowing  that  you  are  sincere  men,  loyal  to  your  convictions, 
I  am  sure  that  you  will  help  me  to  put  the  Government  in 
eternal  possession  of  these  lands.  I  propose  this  afternoon, 
therefore,  not  to  vote  against  the  Shaw  bill,  but  to  offer 
up  an  amendment  to  it  that  will  bring  about  the  end  we 
wish  and  bind  the  Government  for  all  time  to  come  never 
to  lease  or  sell  those  lands." 

They  were  off  the  edge  of  one  suspense  merely  to  be 
hooked  by  another.  The  woolen  senator  spoke  first,  moving 
round  his  theme  with  the  skill  of  a  graceful  skater  on  thin 
ice.  Rarely  as  he  and  the  senator  from  Illinois  agreed,  he 
yielded  to  no  man  in  his  admiration  for  the  brilliancy  and 
profundity  of  Bruce's  intellect ;  but  he  could  not  see  how  any 
sane  mind  could  reach  so  rash  a  conclusion.  To  his  own 
way  of  thinking,  to  vote  against  the  Shaw  bill  was  one  thing, 
to  vote  for  McAllister's  proposed  amendment  to  it  was 
quite  another.  Neither  his  conscience  nor  his  duty  to  his 
country  would  permit  him  to  make  light  of  so  serious  a 
distinction. 

293 


THE   RADICAL 

So  spake  the  oracle,  and  the  chorus  gathered  around  him 
chanted  with  meet  and  solemn  variants  his  fate-Interpreting 
dithryambs. 

But  when  >  the  voices  died  away  Bruce  McAllister,  a 
Siegfried  born  to  overthrow  the  gods,  defying  their  man 
dates  in  the  name  of  the  people,  said  quietly: 

"  Very  well,  let  each  of  us  stand  on  his  record  and  none 
of  us  be  ashamed  of  where  he  has  been  seen,  of  what  he  said, 
or  by  whose  summons  he  came  hither.  I  am  not  and  I 
know  you  will  not  be." 

"  Do  you  mean  to  say,  Senator  McAllister — do  I  in 
terpret  your  threat  correctly — that  if  we  don't  promise  to 
vote  for  your  proposed  amendment  that  you  are  going  to 
publish  to  the  world  an  account  of  the  morning's  transac 
tions  ?  "  so  spake  the  senator  learned  in  the  law. 

"  Exactly,"  answered  the  friend  of  democracy. 

Visible  as  the  dark  lines  of  the  storm  on  the  face  of  the 
sky  and  the  waters  were  the  astonishment  and  fear  written 
on  the  countenances  of  Bruce's  auditors.  They  foresaw  the 
letters,  high  as  a  house,  black  as  death,  in  which  a  sensa 
tional  press  would  scarehead  the  world:  "  Anthony  Wyckoff 
Calls  a  Special  Meeting  of  the  Senate.  McAllister  Saves 
the  Common  People  Again."  The  picture  so  conjured  up 
was  not  entrancing. 

"  This  is  dishonorable,"  stated  the  cotton  senator,  his 
silver-white  imperial  wagging  contemptuously. 

"  Maybe,"  returned  Bruce.  "  I  am  not  holding  out  for 
punctilios.  I  wish  the  amendment  passed." 

"  Regardless  of  means,  of  methods,  or  the  honor " 

"  That  is  out  of  the  consideration.  I  have  a  big  work 
to  do  and  I  will  not  stop  to  argue  what  constitutes  honor 
and  what  doesn't.  I  wish  the  amendment  passed,"  returned 
Bruce,  interrupting  the  cotton  and  politics  of  the  South. 

294 


JUST  A  WORD 


"  Vague  statements  are  all  very  well,"  declared  the  sen 
ator,  who  was  millions  of  miles  remote  from  his  coal,  "  but 
the  American  public  is  too  intelligent  to  be  so  credulous. 
It  is  your  word  against  ours.  The  people  will  demand 
proof." 

"  And  they  shall  have  it,"  said  Bruce,  "  in  the  shape  of 
a  full  stenographic  report  of  this  meeting  from  the  begin 
ning  of  it  until  now.  Oh,  Butler !  " 

A  door  opened  and  the  blithe  correspondent  entered  with 
a  Holy-High-Jinks  expression  on  his  sloping  face  to  take 
his  place  in  that  entrancing  charade :  "  The  Press,  Democ 
racy,  and  the  United  States  Senate." 

Over  the  pretty  tableau  we  let  fall  the  curtain  while 
we  remark,  as  its  silken  folds  descend,  that  those  who  have 
secrets  must  henceforth  be  careful  not  to  whisper  them  in 
a  hotel  like  the  Rhodomontade,  as  full  of  men,  maids,  and 
boys  as  of  sounding  marble  and  tinkling  gilt,  mercenary 
and  sordid  as  their  surroundings.  The  walls  have  ears, 
O  Anthony,  and  though  they  were  stopped  with  all  thy 
gold  yet  would  there  be  chinks  and  crevices! 


295 


CHAPTER   XIII 

A   BATTLE   IN    THE   SENATE 

ON  the  way  from  the  Hotel  Rhodomontade  to  the  Cap 
itol  the  senators,  who  disappeared  by  twos  on  foot 
and  in  vehicles,  naturally  talked  less  about  liter 
ature  and  the  fine  arts — a  subject  that  usually  engrosses  their 
conversation — than  about  the  audacity  of  Bruce  McAllister. 
They  nominated  it,  with  expletives  generally  expressed  in 
dashes,  despicable. 

Here  was  the  object  of  their  excited  debate:  Was  the 
man  only  bluffing  or  had  he  bluffed  with  the  intention  of 
fulfilling  his  threat  ?  The  woolen  senator,  argued  that  at  the 
critical  moment  audacity  would  fail  him,  and  he  would  not 
dare  to  make  his  assertion  public.  Whereto  answers  King 
Coal :  Having  naught  to  lose  and  all  to  win  wherefore  shall 
he  not  dare  all?  Trust  the  vulgar  upstart  and  demagogue, 
my  sincere  possessor  of  conservative  millions,  to  pull  even 
truth  by  the  beard!  Reverence  for  the  Senate  and  its  fine 
traditions?  Bah!  he  would  defile  them  with  pitch,  would  his 
beloved  common  people  but  reward  his  labors  with  laughter 
now  and  votes  anon ! 

And  when  our  hero,  to  the  invisible  flag  unfurled  by  his 
conscience,  to  the  drum  beat  of  his  eager  heart,  stepped  into 
the  Senate  chamber  he  asked  himself  yet  again  before  the 
fray:  How  is  it  with  mine  adversaries?  Do  they  stand  in 
such  great  fear  of  my  vaunt  that  they  will  do  as  I  com- 

296 


A   BATTLE   IN  THE  SENATE 

manded  and  vote  for  my  amendment  lest  I  expose  them  to 
the  world,  or  will  they  think  me  incapable  of  carrying  out 
my  threat  and  put  me  to  a  defy? 

Noon  came ;  the  senators  took  their  places ;  the  body  was 
called  to  order,  and  the  morning  hour  began.  The  clacking 
of  the  wheels  of  legislation  fretted  our  hero's  nerves  as 
familiar  noises  and  sights  do  when  one  waits  for  a  big  event 
to  thrust  them  into  the  background.  He  sat  there,  as  democ 
racy  never  should,  unreadable ;  a  curious  study  for  his  enemies 
who  wondered  what  might  be  going  on  in  his  mind  while  he 
wondered  what  plot  their  angry  wits  might  be  concocting. 

Fame,  voicing  it  abroad  that  democracy  shall  speak  to-day 
through  its  chosen  mouthpiece,  filled  the  galleries!  Inez,  con 
trite  in  fleeting  moments,  more  determined  in  her  pride,  hour 
in  and  out,  looked  down  on  the  scene,  careful  to  avoid  young 
democracy's  appealing  eye  and  show  her  glances  were  not 
meant  for  him.  The  golden  Georgia,  watching  Sydney  jubi 
lant  and  sure  of  success  as  he  sat  there  toying  with  his  Hy 
perion  locks,  and  building  his  castles  on  and  out  of  Sir  An 
thony's  acres — the  golden  Georgia,  still  in  dread  of  the  man 
McAllister,  burned  in  the  hot  fire  of  suspense.  Anthony 
would  take  these  lands  from  the  Government ;  Sydney  would 
take  them  away  from  Anthony;  Anthony,  chuckling  as  his 
trains  speeds  him  afar,  would  take  them  away  from  Sydney; 
and  Bruce,  these  gracious  senators  unwillingly  assisting  him, 
would  give  them  back  to  Caesar  again.  So  would  justice, 
ideally  considered,  complete  its  circle! 

But,  hush!  on  the  green  carpeted  floor  the  long,  lank 
form  of  Bruce  McAllister  lifted  itself.  His  long  arms  shot 
outward  awkwardly  while  he  raised  his  voice  in  hot  denun 
ciation  of  the  Shaw  bill,  praising  the  virtues  of  the  amend 
ment  he  had  offered  up.  Progress  was  beseeching  the  Gov 
ernment  to  take  control  and  develop  these  lands  in  the  name 
20  297 


THE   RADICAL 

kmooacy,  calling  its 

.1-.  jiT,.-,     .«*          .  r I.    -    -_n_T.ll    -M-H-llK  -l.~ 

7  - 

::;~  ::>  ::;~. 


out  what  time  was 


Tie  bill  became  as  a  watchtower,  which  he  mounted  to 
a  broader  outlook  on  the  big  problems  of  the  generation. 
He  spoke  of  the  two  classes  that  had  endured  while  whole 
chrflizations  had   shifted   under  fhrir   feet.   r*k**1g"*g  their 
manes  only,  their  positions  never — the  rich  and  die  poor,  those 
who  hired  and  those  who  toiled!     Their  Hashing  interests 
had  precipitated  the  eternal  *«••••••  dot  hurled  world  after 

•Piald  into  the  dast,  eat  of  which  other  worlds  arose  and  gave 
txrtB  to  new  masters  and  diiferent  slaves . 

~  The  centuries/*  he  said,  "could  no  more  preserve  a  na 
tion  ?h»t  was  half  *ijf"tjl  and  half  labor  than  one  that  was 
half  slave  and  half  free.''  He  raised  his  hand  aloft,  swinging 
to  castigate  society  with  its  lashes,  called  by  him  the 

"*  JL  r~    "T~.2.r^. .L.T 

Charity  k  the  dust  that  the  automobiles  of  the  rich 
the  eyes  of  the  poor  to  keep  them  from  hurling 
the  reckless  chauffeur." 

D9CKS  OX  tnf  POOf  MDO5(  flTlrfr  S4  PTi^fl  Of  iDrCSLJL  I  IP 

is  a  disgrace ;  it  l»«|i»jl€.  die  ignorance  of  die 
who  have  the  remedy  in  their  own  hands  and  know  it 


Life  is  a  ganr  of  blindman's  butt  through  which  the 
blindfolded,  ^•^••••d  bv  wealth,  FT^X^*^  at  bv 

by  justice." 

He  stood  aloof  from  bitterness;  just  die  facts  were  his 
allies,  fancy  die  general  under  which  he  marshalled  them  into 
line.  He  paused  before  winging  Us  way  still  higher.  The 


A  BATTLE   IN  THE   SENATE 

steel-gray  died  out  of  his  ef«s;  they  ceased  to 

into  the  calm  of  a  dreamy  blue.     He  pictured 

when  poverty  should  join  the  limbo  icsei'ved  by  ax 

humanity  for  the  horrors  of  a  barbarian  era.     He 

the  return  of  the  golden  age.     And  Inez?     She 

with  him,  despite  herself.     He  had  carried  her  too  far,  step 

by  step,  even  without  her  knowledge  and  consent,  that  she 

should  turn  back  now  when  his  organlike  yoke  swayed  and 

compelled  her  whole  emotional  being. 

She  stood  with  him  on  the  mountain  peaks,  led  thither 
by  the  love  she  would  not  now  deny,  the  cold  dear  air, 
breathed  by  no  lungs,  blowing  «uuuud  her.  She  commoncd 
with  the  stars !  By  sheer  force  of  soul  and  voice  he  carried 
her  into  his  Utopia !  The  lines  on  his  face  furrowed  dcgpei 
and  deeper  through  that  swarthy  skin  as  if  his  were  the  sor 
row  of  a  Moses  fated  to  stand  forgotten  on  Pisgah  whfle  his 
people  stormed  the  fabled  land.  Her  fancy  was  ^  '  •'  F  by 
the  warm  blood  of  her  heart,  which  rose  in  her  bosom  and 
fluttered  toward  him  in  the  full  majesty  of 
sorrow. 

He  ceased,  ana  sitting  down  crossed  ms  long  legs 

.T  -"-  ~  ^        '.  ~-  ~     —  _T  ~      *  J~.  *r     . -TI- . "_  T~r  5     S - _  ^ T- 1  ^f 

over  the  Senate. 

In  one  way  his  radical  speech  had  endangered  his 
for  success,  since  to  vote  for  his  •••••li  •  "  now  would  be, 
as  it  were,  to  charge  the  very  voters  with  having  built  lie 
fires  from  which  McAllister  had  seized  the 
On  the  other  hand  his  radicalism — the 
the  brand  seized  from  the  burning — came  like 
hurled  on  top  of  the  other,  as  if  the  man  were 
fearless,  and  would  have  his  own  way  though  he 
by  the  pillars  of  the  house  he  had  •••ilmj  lor  destruction. 

The  moment  for  balloting  came.    Bruce  believed  that  the 
299 


THE  RADICAL 

first  vote  cast  by  any  of  Anthony's  senators  would  be  decisive 
since  if  one  set  the  danger  he  had  threatened  at  naught  the 
others,  plucking  up  courage  from  desperation,  would  defeat 
his  amendment — Bruce,  arguing  thus,  felt  his  nerves  palpi 
tate  like  pulses  when  that  first  vote  was  cast. 

The  first  senator  declared  for  the  McAllister  amendment ; 
the  second,  following  out  the  lines  of  Bruce's  argument,  did 
likewise,  then  the  third.  Bruce  was  victor!  And  yet  to 
him,  contrite  as  the  great  ones  are  in  the  hour  of  triumph, 
the  victory  brought  small  elation.  The  little  man,  blown 
into  power  by  circumstance,  would  deny  that  indispensable 
ally  the  credit  deserved  for  his  success,  and  the  next  time,  cir 
cumstance  deserting,  he  falls  flat,  blames  a  thankless  world 
for  its  ingratitude  to  superiority.  But  the  mind  of  girth 
is  inclined  to  praise  circumstance  overmuch,  to  take  its  own 
shortcomings  severely  to  task  and  prepare  itself  for  that  next 
still  greater  ordeal  when  it  must  look  to  itself  alone  to  fight 
its  battle  royal. 

And  Bruce,  by  nature  introspective,  gifted  with  a  keen 
insight  into  the  vanity  of  things  that  inclines  toward  melan 
choly,  questioned  the  value  of  his  singular  triumph.  After 
all  it  was  merely  the  intervention  of  Anthony  Wyckoff,  step 
ping  down  like  a  god  from  the  machine  of  commerce,  that 
had  saved  the  day.  Had  the  god  turned  the  other  way  how 
would  it  have  fared  with  him  ?  And  to  what  subterfuge  and 
trickery  had  he  not  been  obliged  to  stoop  in  order  to  force 
the  enemy  into  submission?  He  had  borrowed  their  own 
methods,  fought  them  with  their  own  weapons,  stolen  from 
their  own  detestable  arsenal.  He  was  sick,  sick  to  the  soul 
of  it  all! 

Shaw,  plucking  Hyperion  whiskers,  arising  to  address  the 
Senate,  shook  him  out  of  his  despondent  mood.  Striding 
the  Senate  with  the  confident  impudence  of  a  Colossus,  who 

300 


A  BATTLE  IN  THE  SENATE 

save  Sydney  himself  would  have  known  that  he  was  a  ruined 
man  and  was  surveying  from  that  dizzy  height  of  compla 
cency  his  own  desolated  monarchy?  And  besides  financial 
bankruptcy  the  lost  bill  meant  political  ruin ;  for  a  hint,  com 
ing  from  one  of  Sir  Anthony's  senators,  had  told  him  that 
the  magnate  intended  to  plunge  him  into  immeasurable 
obscurity. 

He  blamed  McAllister  for  every  single  bit  of  it,  and  he 
meant  before  he  was  hurled  into  that  abyss  from  which  there 
was  small  hope  of  arising  ever,  while  all  the  blue  devils  of 
defeat  stood  there  grinning  and  grimacing  at  him,  to  square 
the  accounts  that  had  been  accumulating  for  so  long,  and  to 
rend  his  archenemy  hip  and  thigh. 

Ridicule  was  to  be  his  knife — deadliest  of  all  possible 
weapons  if  the  woman  one  loves  be  present  when  skillful 
hands  wield  it.  He  paid  mock  homage  to  Bruce's  achieve 
ment,  it  being  his  wish,  he  said,  to  lay  his  wreath  of  admir 
ation  at  the  foot  of  this  Apollo  of  democracy.  The  facetious 
comparison  of  Bruce  to  the  Greek  god  was  laid  out  on  fat 
Rabelaisian  lines.  Its  inimitability  deserved  a  worthier  pur 
pose  for  the  effort. 

The  crafty  Shaw  smote  Bruce  in  the  weakest  point. 
Childishly  sensitive  in  the  matter  of  appearance,  his  victim 
writhed.  The  mercilessness,  the  brutality  of  the  attack 
appalled  Bruce,  and  his  wits,  panic-stricken  for  the  first  time 
in  their  existence,  rushing  hither  and  thither  in  his  bewildered 
brain,  added  to  his  confusion  and  refused  to  come  to  his  res 
cue.  Inez's  presence  had  just  the  effect  that  Shaw,  fortunate 
comedian,  chastising  through  ridicule,  desired. 

The  Senate  found  amusement,  doubly  welcome  in  this 
compensatory  guise,  in  the  unsparing  caricature  of  its  enemy, 
and  a  round  of  hearty  laughter  rewarded  the  effort  of  the 
nimble-witted  artist.  The  gallery  was  more  boisterous  in 

301 


THE  RADICAL 

its  recognition.  Even  Georgia  was  made  wretched  by  this 
unexpected  and  sorry  spectacle.  Inez's  emotions  were  rent, 
so  to  say,  by  hands  in  conflict;  she  had  been  terrified  at  first 
by  the  financial  ruin  which  she  believed  to  await  her  father, 
then  Bruce's  eloquence  had  carried  her  beyond  herself,  then  a 
calmer  mood  had  succeeded  in  which  she  reverted  to  her 
original  fears,  and  now  these  were  engulfed  in  so  deep  a 
sympathy  for  him  that  it  was  maternal. 

The  President's  gavel  made  a  dignified  protest  against 
the  outburst  of  hilarity,  smothering  it.  Craving  the  silence 
for  forensic  purposes  Shaw  filled  it  to  the  last  dimension  with 
his  pungent  wit.  The  biography  of  Bruce  McAllister  occu 
pied  him.  He  lifted  him  out  of  the  cradle  with  the  hand  of 
ridicule,  lampooning  his  struggle  upward,  and  he  crowned 
the  masterpiece  with  a  Juvenalian  description  of  Bruce  Mc 
Allister,  the  butcher  boy,  delivering  meat.  So  did  ridicule, 
dragging  Bruce  out  of  his  conqueror's  chariot  by  the  hair, 
tie  him  to  its  wheels  whilst  the  triumphant  Shaw  directed 
its  steeds. 

The  phlegmatic  Fiske,  sorry  for  Bruce  as  a  father  might 
be  sorry  for  his  son,  watching  him  narrowly,  saw  his  swarthy 
face  flush  with  wrath  as  he  lifted  the  cover  from  his  desk 
and  drew  something  or  other  from  its  cluttered  interior. 
He  feared  that  Bruce  might  lose  his  self-control,  commit  a 
severe  breach  of  the  rules,  to  which  Sydney  had  paid  at  least 
a  technical  obeisance,  and  subject  himself  to  severe  discipline 
from  the  Senate. 

When  Bruce  arose  and  strode  down  the  aisles  toward 
Shaw's  desk,  Fiske's  face  lost  its  bronze  color.  He  lifted 
himself  to  his  feet  and  followed  Bruce,  dismayed  by  the 
thought  that  he  intended  to  inflict  bodily  chastisement  on 
his  tormentor. 

Shaw  was  chatting  gayly  with  his  colleagues  when  Bruce 
302 


A  BATTLE  IN  THE  SENATE 

approaching  caught  his  eye.  The  magnetic  Sydney  changed 
color  and  crouched  down  in  his  chair  involuntarily.  The 
grim  look  on  McAllister's  face,  the  hand  concealed  behind 
his  back,  put  him  in  fear  of  physical  violence. 

"  This  is  your  property  by  right,  senator,"  spoke  Bruce 
curtly,  laying  a  long  white  envelope  on  Shaw's  desk.  Wheel 
ing  around,  he  walked  back  to  his  seat,  averting  narrowly  a 
collision  with  the  massive  bulk  of  Franklin  De  Wolfe  Fiske. 

Shaw  rent  the  envelope.  The  papers  and  the  prospectus 
that  Doc  Scollard  had  abstracted  from  his  desk,  the  summary, 
covered  with  his  own  and  Georgia's  compromising  annota 
tions,  shocked  his  curious  gaze.  His  white  hand  ceased  to 
stroke  his  blond  beard  and  his  head  fell  toward  his  chest. 

"  McAllister  is  a  man,  anyway.  My  God,  what  a  man 
McAllister  is !  "  he  murmured  to  himself  again  and  again, 
trancelike. 


After  the  heaping  of  the  coals  of  fire  on  Shaw's  head 
Bruce,  spurred  by  restlessness,  passed  into  the  corridor.  He 
was  crossing  its  tesselated  floor  when,  espying  Fiske  at  the 
end  of  it,  he  beckoned  to  him. 

To  the  ironical  one,  cold  now  that  the  need  for  all  sym 
pathy  had  passed,  he  unburdened  himself.  "  In  the  Senate," 
he  said,  "  I  feel  like  a  good  Christian — in  the  arena  of  Nero's 
day." 

"  Turn  Roman,  McAllister,"  came  the  rejoinder  and 
then  right  afterwards:  "  Let's  go  in  and  watch  the  President 
of  these  United  States  signing  bills.  Temporary  aberration 
may  bring  the  poor  man  to  such  a  pass  that  he  will  counter 
sign  that  Child-Labor  bill  of  yours." 

The  bronze  handle  of  the  arched  door  before  which  Bruce 
and  Fiske  stood  was  turned  and  they  stepped  into  the  room 

303 


THE   RADICAL 

reserved  for  the  chief  executive  on  his  visits  to  the  Capitol 
during  those  last  few  hours  before  adjournment.  Lavishness, 
bickering  with  good  taste,  was  responsible  for  the  decorations 
of  the  apartment.  Brumidi's  portraits  of  Washington  and  his 
first  cabinet  honored  the  walls ;  and  the  friends  of  art's  youth, 
allegories  of  Liberty,  Religion  and  Executive  Authority, 
looked  at  the  archtypes  of  Exploration,  History  and  Discov 
ery,  bearing  the  symbols  of  their  several  domains.  Pier 
glasses  stretching  from  floor  to  ceiling  compensated  for  the 
space  they  took  up  by  adding  an  illusory  length.  Before 
the  oblong  mahogany  table,  with  rounded  edges,  the  white- 
haired  President  sat,  looking  askance  at  the  piles  of  engrossed 
bills  his  signature  was  to  launch  into  law. 

The  room  was  filled  to  the  point  where  more  would  have 
crowded  it.  Correspondents  appeared  and  disappeared, 
among  others  little  Butler,  who  was  at  a  loss  to  interpret 
Bruce's  sober  visage,  his  important  victory  duly  considered. 
Pages  tripped  in  and  out,  hurried  sharply  by  the  fat  sergeant- 
at-arms  toward  the  engrossing  clerks,  anathematized  for 
their  slowness.  Messages  came  in  from  the  House  and  the 
Senate.  Secretary  of  the  Navy  Kinkaid,  Secretary  of  the 
Treasury  Scarborough,  all  the  members  of  the  Cabinet,  with 
any  of  their  clerks  that  had  precise  knowledge  of  their  de 
partment's  legislation,  were  there  to  give  the  conscientious 
President  their  advice  concerning  this  avalanche  of  bills  that 
threatened  to  roll  over  and  bury  honesty  itself.  Let  the  curi 
ous  consider  the  proportion  of  honesty  to  the  bills! 

Senators  and  congressmen,  whose  battered  bills  were 
drawing  up  to  face  the  last  ordeal,  chatted  gayly  with  one 
another,  occupying  the  hospitable  leather  chairs  and  the 
lounges  inviting  to  indolence.  The  President  laid  down  his 
hard-driven  pen  at  intervals  and  talked  freely  with  all  those 
who  had  any  claim  on  his  distinguished  consideration.  He 

304 


A  BATTLE   IN  THE   SENATE 

joked  now  and  then  lightheartedly  with  the  sponsors  of  the 
various  decrees,  the  fate  of  which  he  controlled. 

There  was  a  continual  hurried  going  and  soft  coming,  the 
quiet  opening  and  the  careful  shutting  of  doors,  a  gliding 
about  of  the  pages,  the  sharp-voiced  scolding  of  the  bewil 
dered  sergeant-at-arms,  an  ingress  and  egress  of  the  great 
ones,  a  steady  hum  of  confused  words ;  and  amid  this  the  tick 
ing  of  the  pendulum  in  the  tall  clock,  proportioned  like  Bruce, 
was  quite  as  lost  as  the  hum  of  an  insect  in  the  rustling  of 
a  forest  of  leaves. 

Fiske  and  Bruce  approached  the  table,  and  the  President 
extended  a  cordial  hand,  engaging  with  them  in  a  conversa 
tion  that  the  muse  of  history,  overworked  that  day,  was  too 
busy  to  record,  when  another  handful  of  engrossed  bills  was 
laid  on  the  table.  The  President,  turning  his  eyes  on  these, 
remarked  to  Bruce  jovially: 

"  Well,  here's  your  child,  McAllister.  I  don't  know 
but  we  might  say  it's  your  family,  since  it's  framed  for  the 
benefit  of  all  children.  I  congratulate  you  on  the  passage 
of  the  bill,  and  I  don't  think  I've  ever  signed  anything  in 
either  of  my  administrations  that  gives  me  so  much  genuine 
pleasure." 

"  Let  McAllister  have  the  pen,  Mr.  President,"  drawled 
out  Fiske  as  he  was  affixing  his  coarse-lettered  signature, 
"  that  with  one  stroke  is  going  to  throw  two  million  little 
children  out  of  a  job." 

"  And  who  may  not  stay  out  of  a  job  very  long,"  rejoined 
Bruce. 


305 


CHAPTER  XIV 

THE   TRIBUTE 

I  DON'T  like  it!  You  oughtn't  to  have  come!  Aren't 
things  bad  enough  without  taking  this  extra  precaution 
of  making  them  worse?  " 

Georgia  turned  as  if  struck  full  in  the  face.  So  anxious 
had  been  her  sympathy  to  extend  her  regrets  over  his  defeat 
that  immediately  after  Shaw's  onslaught  of  Bruce  she  had 
sent  him  word  to  meet  her  in  the  marble  room.  She  had 
risked  all  in  the  coming  and  Shaw's  rebuke  crushed  what  was 
left  of  her  bruised  spirit  and  her  wounded  ambition. 

"  My  father  had  left  the  Senate ;  I  didn't  suppose  the 
risk  was  inordinate.  I  didn't  know  you  considered  it  a  dis 
grace  to  be  seen  with  me,"  she  stammered,  white  as  the  fluted 
columns  of  Carrara  that  surrounded  them. 

Shaw  colored;  anger  shook  him.  He  hated,  after  the 
fashion  of  men,  this  beautiful  wToman  by  whom  he  thought 
his  career  to  have  been  ruined.  He  was  glad,  being  funda 
mentally  weak  and  craven  at  heart,  to  shift  the  responsibility 
for  his  fall  on  feminine  shoulders.  The  cry  of  the  primal 
Adam  welled  in  his  coward  heart,  eager  to  appear  blameless 
before  his  pinchbeck  gods :  "  The  woman  tempted  me !  " 

"  It's  all  on  a  par  with  your  usual  carelessness,"  he  repri 
manded  her  bitterly.  "  You  would  have  involved  both  of  us 
in  a  pretty  scandal  if  this  thing  had  fallen  into  anybody 
else's  hands  but  McAllister's."  He  gave  her  the  summary, 

306 


THE  TRIBUTE 

with  the  marginal  notes  in  her  handwriting,  that  Bruce  had 
handed  him  a  while  ago. 

"  He's  the  most  magnanimous  of  men,  anyway." 

"  The  cur!  "  he  exclaimed. 

"  Sydney !  "  she  objected. 

He  was  willing  to  praise  Bruce  to  himself,  but  his  mean 
spirit  acting  unconsciously,  objected  to  having  him  praised 
by  this  woman,  loved  ardently  by  him  once,  whom  he  wished 
now  to  discard.  It  was  as  if  the  smouldering  embers  of  his 
passion  for  her  were  breaking  into  a  faint  flame  of  jealousy, 
to  be  extinguished  no  sooner  than  kindled. 

"  Your  attack  on  him  in  the  Senate  was  brutal.  I  depre 
cate  it.  I  think,  no  matter  how  it  may  hurt  to  have  me  say 
so,  it  was  unwarranted.  He  is  the  most  magnanimous 
among  men." 

"  He  may  be — I  have  no  desire  to  bandy  words — if  he  is, 
go  to  him." 

"What  do  you  mean,  Sydney?"  Her  large  face  was 
crimson  with  shame  and  just  rage. 

"  My  meaning  ought  to  be  plain  enough." 

"  It  is  brutally  plain.  It  is  unworthy  of  you !  I  did  not 
come  to  hold  you  to  your  promise  of  marriage.  If  you  would 
part  from  me,  do  so  in  a  way  that  may  not  humiliate  either 
of  us  to  look  back  upon." 

"  I  made  no  promise,"  he  replied  curtly. 

"  The  insult  is  double."  The  mirrors  repeating  the 
marble  columns  in  endless  vistas  showed  her  scarlet.  "  Only 
a  coward  would  say  so !  " 

"I  have  had  enough  of  this!"  He  arose  as  a  thing 
hissing. 

11  And  I !  It  turns  my  heart  sick."  She  lifted  herself 
from  the  leather  lounge,  regal  in  a  certain  queenliness  of  de 
spair.  The  man  in  the  wroman  was  never  more  uppermost. 

307 


THE  RADICAL 

"  I  can  stand  everything,  I  can  forgive  everything  but  cow 
ardice.  It  is  not  for  me  to  boast;  but  I  risked  my  honor, 
my  future,  my  very  life  for  you,  and  now  that  we  failed  to 
gether  you  are  neither  brave  nor  noble  enough  to  stand  with 
me." 

"  I  am  in  no  mood  to  bandy  words." 

"  To  defend  your  honor  rather,  Sydney." 

"  Care  would  become  you,  Georgia." 

"  I  don't  see  why.  I  have  lost  all;  I  have  nothing  fur 
ther  to  lose.  Everything  that  made  my  life  worth  the  living 
is  gone  from  me."  She  stood  as  one  gazing  far  out  at  a  sea 
receding  with  the  wreckage  of  the  ship  that  has  carried  one 
to  shores  thronged  with  blissful  memories.  There  passed 
over  her  large  intellectual  face  a  look  so  determined,  so  som 
ber,  that  his  craven  soul  proved  too  weak  to  fulfil  at  once 
its  own  cruel  resolution,  and  he  said : 

"  Let  us  part  as  friends,  anyway." 

"  You  are  satirical,"  she  laughed,  and  in  her  laugh  there 
was  the  bitterness  of  death.  She  turned  to  go,  feeling  that 
she  had  left  all  her  life  behind  her  in  that  cold  bemarbled 
room,  hoping  that  he  would  recall  her  with  a  word  of  endear 
ment;  but  he  was  fearful  of  exposing  himself  longer  to  the 
eyes  of  ever-watchful  gossip  and  he  reentered  the  Senate. 

A  second  afterwards  she  caught  the  reflection  of  Inez  in 
the  mirror,  and  mistaking  the  reflection  for  the  real  Inez  she 
gave  a  start  of  surprise. 

"Ah,  Georgia!"  Inez  stood  beside  her.  She  noticed 
the  pallor  of  Georgia's  face,  the  drawn  expression,  the  un 
wonted  lines  furrowed  as  by  the  sudden  rolling  down  of  tears. 
She  checked  herself  midway  in  startled  expression. 

"  You  await  Senator  McAllister,  I  know,"  and  without 
staying  for  an  answer  Georgia  used  Bruce's  name  as  the  open 
sesame  to  throw  wide  open  to  Inez's  view  her  admiration 

308 


THE  TRIBUTE 

for  him.  She  pronounced  him  the  most  magnanimous  of 
men,  a  hero  in  a  workaday  unromantic  world  ungraced  by 
them.  Twice  he  had  held  her  honor  in  his  hands  and  twice 
he  had  restored  it  untarnished. 

Before  Inez  had  recovered  from  the  suddenness  of  that 
strange  outburst  of  confidence,  the  golden  Georgia  went  on : 
"  I  ridiculed  him  to  you,  Inez.  I  tried  to  belittle  him  in 
your  eyes.  I  can  only  now  ask  pardon  in  my  name  and  his. 
He  is  a  man  among  men."  There  was  a  nervous  tremor  in 
her  voice,  a  slight  trembling  of  the  sensitive  lips,  and  then, 
like  one  afraid  to  trust  more  to  speech,  she  stooped  to  kiss 
Inez  and,  stammering  out  an  excuse,  was  gone. 

In  the  outer  corridor  she  encountered  Bruce  about  to 
make  his  way  into  the  marble  room  to  meet  Inez.  She  hailed 
him  and  he  advanced  to  speak  to  her.  "  Inez  awaits  you," 
she  said. 

"  Yes,  I  know.  I  got  her  card,  but  I  was  delayed  a 
second." 

"  Again  I  have  to  thank  you  for  your  generosity.  A 
second  time  you  have  put  me  everlastingly  in  your  debt." 

"  The  debt  is  so  small  that  I  can  cancel  it  now  and  lose 
nothing." 

"  It  makes  my  own  debt  all  the  greater." 

He  shifted  the  subject;  she  held  him  to  it,  pouring  forth 
her  gratitude  with  a  warmth  and  a  spontaneity  that  embar 
rassed  him.  Reaction  from  the  base  ingratitude  of  Shaw, 
gnawing  like  a  serpent's  tooth,  may  have  prompted  it. 

"  I  said  harsh  things  of  you." 

"  I  may  have  deserved  them." 

She  shook  her  head  sadly  and  she  seemed  so  steeped  in 
wretchedness  that  he  pitied  her  profoundly  with  all  his  in 
finite  sympathy  for  those  who  suffered.  He  doubted  not 
that  she  had  forsaken  now  all  hope  of  becoming  Shaw's  wife 

309 


THE  RADICAL 

and  his  quick  intuition  told  him  that  their  affair  had  been 
ruptured  by  a  lovers'  quarrel.  On  his  part,  none  the  less, 
delicacy  commanded  silence. 

"  I  must  go  now ;  I  have  been  delayed  too  long,"  said 
Georgia,  and  somehow  even  these  commonplace  words 
seemed  to  Bruce  to  be  drenched  in  tears;  and  she  went  on 
hastily,  excitedly,  as  if  it  were  something  she  had  been  long 
meaning  to  say  and  must  say  it  now:  "  Inez  awaits  you;  go 
to  her.  She  is  in  love  with  you.  You  are  blind,  not  to 
have  seen  it  long  ago." 

She  turned  precipitately  and  swept  on  her  way,  leaving 
him  with  a  confused  sense  of  his  pity  for  her  and  astonish 
ment  at  this  whirl  of  words  that  she  had  so  impulsively 
scattered  behind  her.  Hastening  into  the  marble  room  he 
found  Inez  gone ;  there  was  a  heavier  feeling  around  his  heart 
and  the  shadows  deepened  on  his  face. 

Why  Inez  left,  ceding  to  the  masterful  mood  of  the  mo 
ment,  it  would  have  been  impossible  for  even  Inez  herself 
to  have  told.  It  might  have  been  the  protest  of  her  femi 
ninity  against  the  intrusion  of  Georgia;  it  might  have  been 
the  reawakening  of  harsher  sentiments,  but  whatever  the  rea 
son  a  long  time  elapsed  before  Bruce  McAllister  was  destined 
to  hear  from  her  lips  how  bitterly  she  resented  Shaw's  dia 
tribe  against  him. 


310 


CHAPTER   XV 

GEORGIA'S  DEPARTURE 

WHEN  Georgia  Fiske  Ten  Eyck  reached  home  she 
hastened  to  her  room,  locked  the  doors,  and  threw 
herself  at  full  length  on  the  couch.  Her  breast 
heaved ;  her  large  intellectual  face  was  white  with  pain.  Her 
complete  overthrow  had  come  that  day!  Shaw  had  broken 
with  her  finally  and  irrevocably!  He  had  become  all  in  all 
to  her  while  she  to  him  had  become  a  trifle  outworn.  The 
moral  sacrifice  she  had  made  voluntarily  in  his  behalf,  her  un 
willing  treachery  to  her  father,  bound  her  to  Shaw  the  closer, 
since  remorse  for  her  sins  was  sure  to  be  severer  when  she 
was  abandoned  by  him  for  whom  they  had  been  committed. 

Conscience  is  sometimes  an  obliging  creditor,  but  it  will 
demand  its  last  penny  of  dues  in  the  end.  Her  strong,  mas 
culine  intellect,  born  to  think  independently,  had  put  her 
in  rebellion  against  the  conventions  set  for  her  sex,  while 
her  feminine  nature,  loving  to  be  foremost  in  the  very  so 
ciety  that  laid  down  these  so  arbitrary  and  rigorous  laws, 
forced  her  to  bow  a  submissive  knee  in  public  to  what 
her  private  life  spurned.  Her  divided  nature,  her  double 
life  were  constantly  in  clash,  and  the  tragedy  of  her  ex 
istence  was  outlined  in  advance  for  her  with  a  Grecian 
fatality. 

She  took  all  her  suffering  with  a  certain  masculine  sto 
icism,  suppressing  her  groans  with  clenched  fists,  her  white 


THE   RADICAL 

teeth  biting  into  the  soft  flesh  of  her  underlip,  her  eyes  glassy 
but  tearless. 

At  seven  the  call  came  for  dinner,  and  not  long  there 
after  the  man  rapped  at  the  door.  She  answered  in  a  low 
voice  that  she  was  suffering  from  a  nervous  headache  and 
wished  to  be  excused.  No,  she  cared  for  nothing;  not  even 
tea.  She  begged  not  to  be  disturbed. 

She  arose  and,  walking  over  to  the  window,  rested  her 
arms  on  the  sill  and  looked  out.  Her  long  hair,  uncoiled 
and  disheveled,  falling  in  a  shower  of  gold  to  her  waist, 
blew  disregarded  in  her  face  and  her  eyes.  The  dusk  sank 
aweary,  as  if  to  find  rest  in  the  lap  of  the  earth.  Slowly 
the  roof  tops  of  the  government  buildings  in  the  Mall  dwin 
dled  from  view,  as  if  they,  too,  were  seeking  solace  under 
the  sheltering  tent  of  the  night.  The  darkness  fell  softly 
as  sleep  itself  over  tired  Washington.  Rest  was  for  all 
things  save  her. 

The  night  marched  forth  in  all  its  majestic  somberness. 
At  the  end  of  the  street,  sloping  upward,  the  electric  lights 
twinkled  watchfully  from  the  White  House  porticoes.  Over 
the  serene  abode  the  high  stark  Ionic  columns  stood  at  vig 
ilance,  like  grim,  impassable  guards.  Her  ambition  had  sought 
to  enter  these  auspicious  portals  and  been  repulsed  repeat 
edly — killed  finally.  Her  life,  broken  hearted,  choked  with 
tears,  gazed  on  the  slain  one,  bleeding  there.  Somber  and 
more  somber  with  the  deepening  blackness  grew  her  mood. 
The  warm  winds,  fluttering  like  the  silks  of  a  fairy 
presence,  seemed  to  her  to  sob  out  the  infinite  sadness  of 
the  world. 

The  stars  came  forth,  beaming  and  dancing  with  pristine 
vigor  and  joy,  careless  of  life's  manifold  misery  that  called 
up  to  them  from  the  earth  below.  The  city  was  lapped  in 
silence,  broken  only  by  the  steady,  monotonous  click-clack 

312 


GEORGIA'S   DEPARTURE 

of  the  horses'  hoofs  on  the  asphalt  pavement.  From  the 
circle  across  the  way  the  odor  of  hyacinths  stole  into  her 
room  like  faint  music.  She  was  alone  in  the  world — she 
and  her  sorrow! 

The  peculiar  mysterious  happiness  that  sometimes  springs 
from  grief,  the  luxury  of  pitying  oneself  when  the  soul  is 
wrenched  in  twain  and  one  half  of  it  weeps  for  the  other, 
was  no  longer  for  her.  She  had  passed  that  stage ;  her  whole 
being  was  steeped  in  misery.  She  moaned  aloud,  her  face 
white  as  if  her  sobs  were  drawing  the  very  blood  from  her 
lips.  Her  forehead  sank  on  her  arms;  then  she  lifted  her 
eyes  and  they  traveled  in  the  direction  of  the  obelisk — the 
huge,  stern  sentinel  of  the  night  on  which  she  had  looked 
so  often  in  such  varying  moods.  She  could  discern  its  white, 
gaunt  outlines  standing  there  like  some  ghostly  figure  arisen 
out  of  the  past.  Her  mind  centered  on  it,  her  whirling 
thoughts  concentrated,  and  her  whole  life  moved  before  her 
in  review. 

She  fell  to  wondering  what  her  mother  was  like,  this 
strange,  enigmatical  woman  who  died  while  her  daughter 
was  still  an  infant,  of  whom  Georgia  had  heard  but  little — a 
bit  here  when  her  uncommunicative  father  was  in  one  mood, 
a  bit  there  when  he  was  in  quite  another.  This  brooding 
over  her  mother,  this  fanciful  construction  of  her  character 
and  personality  had  its  peculiar  charms  for  her  at  moments 
when  remorse  or  distress  was  uppermost.  Flashes  as  of 
another  life,  of  soul  transmigration,  would  quiver  through 
her,  and  this  being  created  by  her  imagination  would  stand 
before  her  clothed  in  flesh,  vitalized  by  blood;  and  elusive 
phrases,  indistinct  and  hazy,  that  she  had  heard  spoken 
sometime,  somewhere,  by  her  mother's  lips,  would  flit  through 
her  mind. 

What  was  the  mystery  that  surrounded  her  mother's 
21  313 


THE  RADICAL 

end?  How  had  she  quit  the  world?  Death?  Suicide? 
Georgia's  whole  body  shuddered,  her  muscles  contracting 
tensely.  By  some  process  of  reasoning,  illogical  and  without 
basis,  resting  on  a  stray  hint,  caught  from  she  remembered 
not  where,  she  reached  the  conclusion  that  her  mother's 
death  had  come  by  her  own  hand.  The  gloomy,  morbid 
thought  thrilled  responsive  chords.  "  She  must  have  suf 
fered  like  me,  we  must  have  been  alike,"  she  sobbed,  as  if 
pitying  her  mother  rather  than  herself. 

In  the  church  on  the  opposite  corner  the  choir  was  re 
hearsing,  and  through  the  open  door  the  solemn  roll  of  the 
organ  and  the  chant  of  voices  traveled  like  the  perfume  of 
the  hyacinth  through  the  May  night  to  her.  The  music 
startled  her  at  first;  she  had  been  lost  so  inextricably  in 
the  dark,  drear  cavern  of  her  own  thoughts  that  she  had 
not  heard  a  note  of  it  until  the  moment  when  the  swelling 
sounds  of  the  chorus  had  burst  in  a  wave  on  her  conscious 
ness;  perhaps  the  door  had  been  shut;  maybe  the  singing 
had  been  softer,  the  playing  lower.  She  resented  it  as  an 
intrusion;  it  grated  on  her  like  harsh  and  fretting  noises, 
and  she  arose  to  close  her  window,  when  the  music  ceased 
and  only  the  steady  click-clack  of  the  horses'  hoofs  on  the 
asphalt  disturbed  the  silence.  She  arose  and  walked  rest 
lessly  up  and  down  the  dark  room,  moaning  to  herself  dis 
consolately.  What  was  her  life  to  be  now?  What  had  it 
ever  been?  Her  insatiable  ambition  had  succeeded  only  in 
embittering  her  father's  existence,  in  making  him  the  plaything 
for  discontent  until  the  end  of  his  days.  She  loved  him  with 
all  her  deep  masculine-feminine  capabilities  for  love,  and 
his  devotion  to  her  had  been  the  undoing  of  his  happiness. 
Her  divorce  had  sullied  his  good  name  with  the  mud  of  scan 
dal  !  She  had  made  an  unholy  compact  with  his  arch  enemy ! 
She  had  been  false  to  him  who  was  ready  to  sacrifice  all  for 


GEORGIA'S   DEPARTURE 

her !  She  had  put  herself  and  his  pride  into  the  hands  of  the 
man  whom  he  hated  most  of  all  men  on  earth !  If  the  sorry 
tale  ever  leaked  out — and  her  despondency  whispered  that 
become  public  property  it  would  and  must — it  would  crack 
that  stoic  heart.  It  was  hard  even  now  to  look  into  those 
severe,  glowering  eyes  of  his,  but  supposing  all  should  become 
known  and  he  should  call  her  to  face  him?  She  preferred 
the  unanswerability  of  death! 

She  dragged  herself  to  the  window  and  sank  down  on 
her  knees.  Evening  after  evening  she  had  sat  in  this  same 
alcove  to  watch  the  sun  set  over  Georgetown,  when  through 
the  gold-shot  mists  her  imagination  made  the  hills  take  on  the 
loftiness  of  mountains  and  scale  tier  on  tier  to  the  clouds. 
Often  and  often  she  had  seen  the  skies  flush  in  a  glory  of 
color,  and  one  by  one  she  had  beheld  the  brilliant  shades  grow 
faint  and  die  out,  engulfed  at  last  in  the  swarthiness  of  the 
night,  and  it  occurred  to  her  that  all  the  joy  and  brightness 
and  color  that  youth  lent  her  life  had  been  fading  with  a  like 
swiftness,  swallowed  finally  in  the  blackness  of  this  one  su 
preme  sorrow. 

But  on  the  morrow  did  not  the  sun  arise  again,  the  dark 
ness  go  down  before  it?  She  smiled  'forlornly,  refusing  to 
delude  herself  with  false  comparisons,  pushed  to  an  absurdity. 
Her  youth  was  dead,  murdered  by  him  who  could  have  saved, 
and  it' never  would  rise  again. 

She  looked  down  on  the  area  below,  faintly  lit  by  the  re 
flection  from  the  lamp  that  was  held  by  the  bronze  figure 
of  the  flying  Mercury  that  stood  on  the  steps  outside.  She 
leaned  far  out,  gazing  down,  down  as  if  into  an  abyss.  She 
shut  her  eyes.  The  warm  winds  were  chill  to  her  hot  cheeks. 
She  was  giddy.  Her  brain  reeled.  The  odor  of  the  hya 
cinths  was  as  intoxicating  as  the  bouquet  of  strong  wines. 
She  felt  her  hold  on  the  window  frame  relax,  as  if  her  will, 

315 


THE  RADICAL 

acting  in  response  to  another  will  stronger  than  its  own,  were 
loosening  her  clasp.  Her  feet  lifted  themselves  from  the 
floor,  her  gaze  fascinated  by  something  far,  far  below  that 
her  reeling  mind  failed  to  comprehend.  She  suppressed  a 
cry,  rather  her  dizzy  heart  tore  it  from  her  lips.  Horrified 
by  what  she  did,  yet  did  not  wish  to  do,  she  let  go. 


316 


CHAPTER   XVI 

R.    R.    DISAPPEARS 

ROSSITER  REMBRANDT  DICKINSON  deserted 
his  friends  and  acquaintances  as  entirely  and  suddenly 
as  he  has  these  chronicles  for  a  long  time.  He  locked 
his  studio  doors  one  night,  shortly  after  his  last  conversation 
with  Elaine,  slipped  the  keys  in  his  pocket,  and  many  a  long 
day  passed  before  his  squat  body  and  fierce  face  were  seen 
in  the  Cavern  of  Despair  again.  Not  a  soul  had  been  taken 
into  his  confidence,  and  consequently  those  who  wished  to  find 
out  where  he  was  had  no  means  at  all  of  learning.  On  his 
door  he  pasted  the  notice :  "  R.  R.  Dickinson  begs  to  inform 
his  patrons  and  the  public  that  he  will  be  gone  from  here  on 
business  for  some  time.  Date  of  return  uncertain."  It  was 
as  if  the  grotesques  he  had  sketched  in  the  corners  of  the  sign 
were  four  R.  R.'s,  in  various  moods  of  merriment,  grinning 
at  himself  as  he  wrote. 

The  numerous  patrons  and  the  great  public  to  which  he 
appealed  in  his  fantastic  declaration  of  absence  were  in  reality 
no  other  than  that  one  individual — Miss  Elaine  McAllister. 
It  was  nobody  else's  business,  he  told  himself,  whether  he 
went  away  or  stayed  at  home,  and  in  so  far  as  Elaine  was 
concerned  it  mattered  not  where  he  went,  since  go  he  must 
and  miss  him  she  would,  he  might  as  well  be  in  one  place  as 
another ;  besides,  he  was  by  no  means  certain  as  to  his  destina 
tion  or  the  length  of  his  departure. 

R.  R.  decided  only,  with  great  reluctance,  that  he  was 
317 


THE  RADICAL 

deeply  in  love,  that  he  was  unhappy  beyond  his  power  of 
expression;  that  if  he  confessed  his  passion  to  its  object  he 
might  either  be  laughed  at  or  accepted,  and  he  was  as  much 
panic-stricken  by  one  alternative  as  the  other.  "  An  artist," 
he  reasoned  out  in  his  calmer  moments,  "  has  no  business  to 
be  married ;  he  wants  to  be  as  unfettered  as  the  winds ;  if  he's 
loaded  down  with  petty  worries  and  small  household  cares, 
it's  good-by  to  art.  Make  up  your  mind  one  way  or  the 
other:  divorce  yourself  from  your  painting  and  take  a  wife 
unto  yourself  or  remain  a  bachelor  and  wedded  to  your  art." 
Then  came  a  moment  of  temptation  and  he  was  for  flinging 
down  his  brushes,  rushing  upstairs  to  Elaine  and  declaring 
his  eternal  devotion.  He  saw  but  one  way  out  of  the  dread 
predicament — flight;  and  to  strengthen  this  conclusion  there 
was  the  fact  that  he  had  funds  in  hand  and  that  he  was  run 
ning  short  of  material  to  finish  his  great  American  series  of 
ten,  and  a  glimpse  of  the  new  life  of  the  West  might  furnish 
him  with  needed  suggestions  and  inspiration.  He  would  go, 
return  and  conquer  himself.  He  wanted  to  say  good-by  to 
Elaine,  that  being  only  just  and  right;  but  he  feared  lest  a 
formal  farewell  might  plunge  him  into  the  very  danger  he 
was  struggling  to  avoid,  and  so  with  his  usual  tact  and  dex 
terity  he  hit  upon  the  aforesaid  sign  as  a  way  out  of  the  diffi 
culty.  How  in  the  world  Elaine  was  to  know  that  the  notice 
was  written  for  her  benefit,  unless  by  intuition  or  witchcraft, 
is  something  that  probably  escaped  his  consideration — he  was 
too  excited  at  the  time  to  think. 

R.  R.  left  his  environment  behind  and  started  toward 
Denver,  but  his  trouble  accompanied  him  every  foot  of  the 
way,  with  just  as  comfortable  and  easy  an  air  as  if  it  had 
been  invited  and  were  heartily  welcome;  Elaine  filled  his 
thoughts  as  much  a  thousand  miles  away  from  her  as  that 
pale  and  frail  young  lady  did  when  she  was  just  over  his 

318 


R.    R.   DISAPPEARS 

head ;  and  the  result  of  this  of  course  was,  either  fortunately 
or  unfortunately,  that  his  journey  was  a  rank  failure,  that  he 
was  wretched  and  ill  at  ease,  in  no  mood  to  heed  or  see  the 
hundred  and  one  subjects  for  paintings  that  stretched  out 
their  hands  to  him  from  everywhere;  and  in  turn  the  result 
of  this  was,  of  course,  that  he  started  homeward  long  before 
the  number  of  days  allotted  for  his  journey  was  over. 

On  his  return  to  Washington  he  played  what  may  be 
termed  a  game  of  hide-and-seek  with  Elaine ;  he  slipped  into 
his  studio  early  of  mornings  and  never  left  at  night  until 
he  had  made  sure  that  she  was  out  of  sight,  groaning  most 
of  the  time  at  the  torture  and  the  penance  he  imposed  on  him 
self.  Elaine,  meanwhile,  was  distressed  at  his  strange  con 
duct,  and  she  all  but  worried  herself  into  sickness  by  imaging 
the  faults  she  might  have  committed  to  hurt  him. 

And  so  the  case  stood  in  Cupid's  court  until  one  fine  morn 
ing  in  May  of  the  long  session  when  R.  R.  threw  his  win 
dows  wide  open  to  let  the  balmy  air  into  his  musty  studio; 
to  R.  R.'s  sensitive  nostrils  the  atmosphere  was  as  laden  with 
warm  and  strong  odors  as  if  Washington  had  been  turned 
into  a  vast  garden  of  flowers ;  and  his  quick  ears  fairly  could 
hear  the  bursting  of  pod  and  bud,  the  unfolding  of  leaf,  the 
roar  of  awakened  life,  the  hum  of  beautiful  industry  that  the 
warm,  virile,  Southern  spring  inspired  in  nature's  workshop. 
In  the  small  garden  of  the  Navy  building  across  the  street 
the  pink  flowers  of  the  magnolia  had  opened  suddenly,  as  if 
by  a  magician's  touch,  into  their  full  pink  and  white  bloom. 
His  own  blood  flowed  faster,  his  heart  beats  were  more  rapid ; 
he,  too,  was  under  the  spell  of  the  season,  his  energies  resur 
rected  to  the  new  life  of  the  year.  He  picked  up  his  brushes 
at  length,  and  knitting  his  brows  he  set  to  work  resolutely — 
an  operation  that  for  a  long  time  had  been  attended  with  no 
degree  of  success.  "  By  God !  I  can't  stand  this  any 

319 


THE  RADICAL 

longer !  "  he  cried  as  suddenly  as  irrelevantly.  "  It's  killing 
me!  I  ain't  agoing  to  stand  it  any  longer!  I'm  going  up 
stairs — that  settles  it.  And  such  a  little  woman,  too!  " 

He  waddled  up  the  dingy  staircase,  muttering,  scolding 
himself,  puffing,  panting,  like  a  curmudgeon  on  his  way  to 
discharge  a  debt,  looking  once  or  twice  as  if  he  would  like 
to  turn  back,  but  prodding  himself  on  again  with  his  own 
choice  selection  of  harsh  epithets.  He  pushed  the  door  of 
Elaine's  studio  open  slightly,  thrust  in  his  shaggy  head,  the 
ridge  of  eyebrow  jutting  fiercely,  and  he  said  in  a  voice  so 
low  that  it  was  ridiculous — his  whole  attitude  promised  to 
shout  and  one  heard  but  a  whisper — "  Woman  alive,  I'm 
back!" 

"  I've  known  that  for  almost  a  month,"  remarked  Elaine, 
trying  hard  to  hide  the  evidences  of  her  shock  of  surprise. 

"I've  been  meaning  to  run  up  to  see  you,  but  the  fact 
is — the  fact  is — "  He  paused,  wagged  his  head,  interrupting 
himself  with :  "  That's  a  fine  bit  you  are  at  work  on  there, 
grand — I  admire  it  mightily.  It's  a  neat  idea — your  young 
woman  bent  double  in  serious  study,  holding  a  light  over 
her  book — very  neat  indeed.  You  know  me,  I'm  not  the 
kind  of  a  man  to  praise  a  thing  I  don't  like." 

"  Yes,  indeed  I  know  you,"  said  Elaine  going  on  with 
her  work,  as  if  quite  indifferent  to  his  presence.  "  But  you 
didn't  finish  explaining  what  the  facts  were  that  you  wanted 
to  use  to  excuse  your  negligence." 

"  That's  true,  I  didn't,  did  I  ?  I've  been  busy,  awful 
busy — on  something  secret — no  one's  to  know  what  it's  about 
until  it's  done  and  settled  one  way  or  the  other." 

"  Poor  boy !  "  she  said  in  mock  pity,  "  what  was  that 
dreadful  incubus?  " 

"  Oh,  nothing,"  he  answered  vaguely,  as  if  he  had  been 
suffering  from  some  mystery,  the  burden  of  which  he  was 

320 


R.   R.   DISAPPEARS 

condemned  to  bear  in  silence  and  alone,  and  then  he  burst 
out  suddenly,  in  a  manner  more  native  to  him ;  "  Elaine, 
Miss  Elaine — Miss  McAllister,  I  mean ;  women  are  different 
than  men;  they're  entirely  different;  they  don't  realize  it; 
but  they  are.  The  point  is  just  here,  when  a  man's  in  trouble 
he  wants  everybody  to  leave  him  alone ;  when  a  woman's  in 
trouble  she  won't  leave  anybody  alone.  Don't  you  see?" 
He  stopped  and  stammered  over  some  incoherent  phrases, 
feeling  that  the  harder  he  tried  to  lift  himself  out  of  the  quag 
mire  the  deeper  he  sank  into  it. 

Elaine  laughed  despite  her  resolution  to  remain  cold,  re 
served  and  distant — Rossiter  Rembrandt  was  too  absurd,  too 
impossible;  one  could  not  take  the  man  seriously.  Surely 
he  was  a  rare  bird,  not  classified  in  any  ornithology  and  one 
to  be  considered  in  his  own  way  or  not  at  all. 

"  Come,"  he  pleaded  earnestly,  "  don't  quarrel  with  me; 
I'm  at  fault,  I'll  acknowledge,  but  there's  a  good  reason  for 
it,  believe  me.  I'll  explain  it  in  due  time  and  maybe  you 
will  agree  with  me.  Don't  say  that  I  assume  too  much  in 
supposing  that  it  is  so  important  to  you;  I  know  very  well 
it  isn't."  His  voice  sank  lower;  his  rugged  face  softened, 
and  her  resolves  became  gentler  with  his  own  compelling 
gentleness.  His  moods  affected  her  as  the  weather  does  the 
thermometer. 

"  And  it's  such  a  beautiful  morning,"  he  chuckled. 
"Have  you  looked  out  of  your  window?  Haven't  you 
heard  the  call  of  the  song  of  spring?  It  seems  to  me  that  if 
I  were  locked  in  jail  to-day,  I'd  break  the  bars  to  get  out  or 
go  crazy.  Did  you  notice  the  magnolias  across  the  way — 
even  they  couldn't  stay  in  this  morning.  Nothing  can.  The 
whole  world  is  swimming  in  sunshine.  'It  is  sacrilege  not  to 
get  out  a  bit  and  worship  nature.  I  think  too  much  of  you 
to  let  you  put  yourself  in  danger  of  being  excommunicated 

321 


THE  RADICAL 

from  the  mother  church,  so  I  come  to  take  you  out  of  this 
unholy  cell  and  offer  a  jaunt.  What  do  you  say?  Your 
young  lady  in  clay  won't  stir  from  her  book  until  you  get 
back;  maybe  she'll  behave  better  afterwards  if  you  leave  her 
in  peace  now.  Besides,  it's  miserly  not  to  give  one  day  out 
of  the  three  hundred  and  sixty-five  to  the  year  that  gives 
us  all  of  them.  Don't  say  no." 

"  How  can  I,"  she  smiled,  "  in  the  face  of  such  unusual 
eloquence?  Where  shall  it  be?" 

R.  R.  grinned,  pleased  as  a  schoolboy  at  the  compliment. 
"  Where  to?  "  he  asked.  "  There's  the  river — we  can  float 
along  to  Mount  Vernon  or  we  can  take  the  car  to  Cabin- 
John's  Bridge;  or " 

"  Cabin-John's  Bridge ;  I  haven't  been  there  yet  and  I'd 
like  to  go." 

"  That  suits  me  better,  too.  I  was  half  afraid  you 
would  say  Mount  Vernon.  All  this  sentimental  drolling 
over  dead  men's  graves  makes  me  sick ;  and  besides  the  poets 
and  politicians — "  he  cut  himself  short.  "  Yes,  we'll  make 
it  Cabin- John's." 

In  the  trolley  car  that  whirled  them  toward  their  desti 
nation  he  sat  in  silence  most  of  the  while,  tranquil  and  happy, 
pleased  with  himself  and  satisfied  with  the  world.  Now 
and  then  he  gave  a  low  chuckle — at  what  it  is  to  be  doubted 
if  he  knew  himself.  Elaine  chattered  on  gayly,  feeling  as  if 
a  heavy  weight  had  fallen  from  her  shoulders  suddenly,  re 
joiced  to  have  that  mixture  of  the  rough  and  the  sterling 
which  was  R.  R.  with  her  again. 

"  It  must  have  snowed  dogwood  last  night,"  she  com 
mented,  drawing  in  long  whiffs  of  the  delicate  fragrance 
and  pointing  to  the  high  white  banks  of  the  flower  that 
loomed  like  drifts  of  unsmutched  snow  out  of  the  vivid  green 
woods  and  thickets. 

322 


R.    R.    DISAPPEARS 

"  Clever  girl!  "  he  exclaimed  to  himself  as  if  he  had  just 
discovered  that  fact;  "very  clever!  Clever  about  every 
thing.  Just  the  woman  for  me;  she  would  make  just  the 
wife  for  me.  We  could  manage  to  pull  through,  I  think. 
I  might  have  to  paint  more  pot-boilers ;  but  we  could  manage 
it,  I  guess.  I  don't  see  why  we  couldn't.  We  should  have 
to,  that's  all.  I'm  going  to  ask  her  before  we  get  back,  as 
sure  as  my  name  is  Rossiter  Rembrandt  Dickinson.  She  may 
say  no;  but  what  of  it?  It'll  hurt,  but  it  won't  kill.  She 
may  say  yes;  I'm  inclined  to  think  that  she  will  say  yes. 
Why  shouldn't  she  say  yes  to  a  man  like  me?  I  was  a  fool 
not  to  have  asked  her  up  in  the  studio  before  we  started;  I 
can't  reel  off  an  eloquent  speech  like  that  every  minute.  If 
it's  going  to  be  yes  or  no,  it  might  as  well  be  at  one  time 
as  another.  So  it  might!  What  a  fool  I  am  anyway. 
Why  in  heaven  must  a  man  make  himself  miserable  over  a 
woman  ?  And  over  a  pale  little  woman  to  boot.  I  used  to 
scoff  at  it ;  I  used  to  laugh  at  it ;  and  now  my  wrists  are  tied 
by  a  pair  of  apron  strings.  I  suppose  it's  punishment;  no, 
it's  arranged  that  way.  A  woman  turns  the  world  topsy 
turvy,  a  man  sets  things  right  again,  and  the  struggle  between 
the  sexes  keeps  the  world  moving.  That's  the  way  I  figure 
it  out,  anyway." 

The  scenic  beauties,  minor  and  subdued,  the  surpassing 
glory  of  the  morning  came  to  him  only  as  sounds  in  the  street 
to  one  seated  in  a  theater  and  lost  in  the  play.  The  lordly 
Potomac,  forced  here  and  there  to  confine  itself  to  narrow 
channels,  roared  out  again  at  its  bars  disdainfully,  boiled 
and  seethed,  and  lashed  its  eddies  into  foam,  and  threw  itself 
headlong  against  the  high  rocks  that  dared  to  face  its  current 
and  challenge  its  way.  Between  the  conduit  road  and  the 
river  the  yellowish  waters  of  the  lock  canal  dozed  in  the 
warm  weather  as  oblivious  as  R.  R.  himself  to  the  upheaval 

323 


THE   RADICAL 

of  life,  the  crackling  of  germination  in  the  earth  and  the  air. 
On  the  farther  shore  the  sheer  gray  bluffs  scarred  and  seamed 
by  blasting,  lifted  on  high  one  solid  mass  of  green  tree  and 
vine  leaves,  not  unlike  a  battle-worn  army  carrying  so  many 
new  banners. 

The  long  pleasant  ride  was  over  all  too  soon  for  Elaine, 
who  had  fairly  reveled  in  the  variation  that  every  twist  and 
turn  in  the  road  spread  to  view.  They  dismounted  from  the 
car  and  sauntered  toward  the  ornamental  steel  bridge  that 
crossed  the  deep  glen  and  ran  over  to  the  grounds  of  the  hotel. 
He  paused  there  a  moment  and  swung  his  short  arm  out  from 
his  dumpy  figure.  "  That's  what  I  call  building,  architec 
ture,  magnificence !  "  he  exclaimed,  pointing,  not  a  stone's 
throw  away,  to  the  span  of  the  graceful  arch  and  the  long 
sweep  of  solid  masonry  of  Cabin- John's  Bridge.  A  swollen 
creek  bubbled  lustily  beneath  it  and  the  high  slender  syca 
mores  pushed  above  its  top. 

"  Yes,"  agreed  Elaine,  "  but  you  shake  your  arm  at  the 
bridge  as  if  you  wished  to  hurl  it  over." 

"  Clever  of  you ;  very  clever  of  you,"  he  chuckled. 

"  I  don't  see  why,"  objected  she. 

"  Not  that  remark  in  particular,  perhaps;  but  then  very 
clever  in  general — at  least  that's  the  way  I  reckon  it  out." 

"  I  suppose  that's  a  pretty  fine  compliment  coming 
from  you,  R.  R. ;  but  why  in  the  world  must  you  reckon  it 
out?" 

"  Did  I  say  anything  about  reckoning  it  out? "  He 
blushed.  "Well,  the  truth  is,  I'm  confused  this  morning; 
all  turned  around  about  something  or  other.  I'm  used  to 
working,  you  see;  working  every  day  of  my  life.  I  never 
stop  for  holidays — I  work  all  the  time.  That's  what  we're 
put  here  for — work!  Holidays  are  just  for  lazy,  shiftless, 
good-for-nothing  people,  that's  what  I  think.  Well,  as  I 

324 


R.    R.   DISAPPEARS 

started  to  say,  quitting  work  to-day  and  getting  out  of  the 
grooves  of  habit  has  kind  of  upset  me." 

Elaine  laughed  aloud  at  the  logic,  clumsy  and  crude  as  the 
perpetrator  of  it,  that  made  good-for-nothings  out  of  him  and 
of  her. 

He  was  ashamed  of  something,  and  he  did  not  know  ex 
actly  what  it  was,  and  his  shame,  his  indecision,  and  his  anger 
wrought  havoc  with  him.  He  rolled  over  himself  awk 
wardly  in  argument  this  morning,  much  as  his  head  went 
over  his  heels  on  that  fatal  day  when  he  tumbled  off  the  car. 
There  were  seconds  when  he  dared  to  believe  that  she  knew 
the  cause  of  all  of  it. 

They  loitered  on  through  the  grounds,  passed  the  merry- 
go-rounds  and  the  scenic  railway  and  the  bandstand  and  sum 
mer  pavilions — he  snorted  out  something  or  other  against 
man's  vilification  of  pleasant  prospects — and  they  strolled 
on  to  the  generous  veranda  of  the  hotel,  whither  they  repaired 
for  luncheon. 

"  Let's  have  our  fried  chicken  al  fresco,"  he  said,  selecting 
a  table  on  the  south  side  of  the  open  porch  that  peered  through 
the  cool  green  of  the  trees  and  out  on  the  shimmering  waters 
of  the  Potomac.  He  ordered  enough  for  four  from  the  as 
tonished  waiter — it  would  have  been  for  six  had  not  Elaine 
stopped  him  in  time — and  when  the  food  came  he  scarcely 
touched  it,  giving  some  far-fetched  excuse.  He  sat  in  ab 
solute  silence,  playing  with  his  knife  and  fork,  looking  all 
the  time  as  if  he  were  on  the  point  of  bursting  out  into  a  long 
discourse. 

After  their  repast  he  suggested  with  unwonted  mildness, 
as  if  she  were  actually  entitled  to  a  voice  in  it,  that  they  walk 
out  toward  Great  Falls  on  the  shaded  conduit  road,  but 
barely  were  they  on  their  way  before  another  idea  laid  hold 
of  him  and  he  asked :  "  How  would  it  be  if  we  take  this  little 

325 


THE  RADICAL 

path  and  go  down  to  the  old  canal?  There's  the  lock 
keeper's  shanty  just  to  one  side  of  it,  and  it  lends  a  human 
note  to  the  picturesque  surroundings.  Nature  is  all  right 
in  its  way,  but  I  like  it  best  when  it  serves  as  a  background 
for  man.  Millet  made  the  right  use  of  it  according  to  my 
ideas." 

"  You  don't  seem  to  like  anything  just  for  its  own  sake," 
she  answered,  "  just  because  it  is  beautiful  or  pleasing  or 
soothing;  but  with  you  everything  must  give  an  excuse  for 
its  existence.  It  must  serve  a  purpose." 

"  Well,  maybe  I  do,  and  maybe  I  don't,  what's  the  use  of 
arguing  and  arguing?  I  don't  believe  in  arguing,  do  you?  " 

"  No,"  she  smiled,  "  not  with  you." 

"Not  with  me!  Why  not  with  me?  You  must  pardon 
my  saying  so,  but  you  make  me  out  a  bear,  a  wolf,  a  savage ; 
as  if  I  wanted  to  eat  people  when  they  dared  to  contradict 
me,  and  I'm  not  that  way  at  all,  and  you  know  it.  I'm  too 
pliable;  too  meek!  I  don't  assert  myself  enough,  that's  the 
trouble  with  me — lack  of  self  assertion!  I  have  tried  to 
overcome  it,  to  conquer  it;  but  what's  the  use?  It's  no  use 
at  all;  a  man  is  made  the  way  he's  made;  and  if  he's  made 
right,  it's  all  right,  and  if  he's  made  wrong,  God  help  him; 
he  can't  do  a  thing  for  himself." 

"  I  don't  agree  with  that,  R.  R." 

"  I  know  you  don't.  I  expected  that  in  advance.  Who 
does  agree  with  me  on  anything  ?  No  one  does !  I  suppose 
I'm  all  wrong  and  others  are  all  right.  It  frightens  me  some 
times.  I  wake  up  with  a  start  and  think:  '  Here,  here,  Ros- 
siter  Rembrandt  Dickinson,  you're  a  lunatic ;  it  can't  be  pos 
sible  that  you  can  disagree  with  the  whole  world  and  be 
sane.'  It's  awful  to  feel  that  way.  I  wish  I  could  change 
myself." 

His  evident  nervousness  passed  into  an  agitation  that  was 
326 


R.    R.   DISAPPEARS 

quite  as  plain.  He  arose  from  where  they  were  seated,  bent 
his  fat  body  and  picked  up  sticks  and  stones  and  turf,  with 
face  as  grim  as  if  he  were  a  Titan  bent  on  pulling  up  the 
earth  to  hurl  it  at  the  sky,  and  he  sent  them  splashing  into 
the  sleepy  waters  of  the  canal. 

"  Hi!  "  he  shouted,  suddenly  dropping  down  at  her  side, 
"  there's  old  Charon  coming  out  of  his  Hades  to  let  the  boats 
pass.  Quite  a  character,  I'll  wager.  An  odd,  old  figure! 
I  wonder  if  he  grew  here;  I  wonder  if  he  ever  left  this  spot. 
It  would  make  a  picture."  He  shut  his  eyes  and  puckered 
his  brows  as  if  he  wished  to  impress  the  scene  deeply  on  his 
memory.  "  I  touched  the  button,"  he  said  after  a  second, 
"  and  I've  got  the  picture,  details  and  all.  Capital!  " 

A  boat  laden  with  grain  for  the  mills  of  Georgetown 
was  being  hauled  down  the  stream  by  a  mule  that  stepped 
indolently  along  the  narrow  towpath,  urged  on  with  but 
little  effect  by  the  stick  of  a  white-haired,  hatless  negro — 
"  the  uncle  "  and  his  garments  were  apparently  of  the  same 
age.  Elaine  and  R.  R.  lapsed  into  silence,  watching  Charon 
open  the  lock-gates  idly  to  let  the  yellow  water  drift  into  the 
chamber.  The  whole  scene  seemed  a  revival  of  the  easy 
going  ante-bellum  days  of  the  old  South  that  has  passed  quite 
away. 

"  If  there  were  only  locks  to  lift  us  over  our  difficulties," 
he  thought.  "  I  haven't  considered  this  thing  seriously 
enough.  Not  half.  I  tell  you  marriage  is  a  big  leap,  like 
jumping  from  one  world  into  another.  Exactly!  And  be 
sides  she  hasn't  given  me  any  chance  to  approach  the  subject; 
not  a  word  of  encouragement.  A  woman  ought  to  do  her 
share.  If  she  cares  for  a  man  she  ought  to  show  it;  that's 
all  there  is  about  it!  It's  as  important  for  her  as  for  me — 
every  bit." 

The  flour  boat,  with  its  charger  and  guardian,  was  hid- 
327 


THE   RADICAL 

den  from  sight;  the  lock  shut  again,  the  keeper  returned  to 
his  house,  and  the  two  were  left  undisturbed,  the  master  and 
mistress  of  their  own  little  world. 

"  Life  is  a  strange  thing,"  he  commented. 

"  I've  heard  that  before,"  she  smiled. 

"I  know!  I  know!"  puffed  R.  R.  waving  his  short 
thick  arm  in  front  of  him;  then — after  a  bit — "  marriage  is 
a  strange  thing,  too  —  very."  He  bent  his  gaze  on  the 
ground,  ostensibly  considering  the  ways  of  an  ant. 

"  Oh,  very,"  she  blushed. 

"  Eh  ?     Do  you  think  it  strange  ?  " 

"  Oh,  very,"  she  repeated. 

He  prodded  into  the  soft  soil  with  a  twig,  caught  be- 
tween  the  rollers  of  conflicting  thoughts.  "  I've  broken 
the  ice;  I've  gone  far  enough  for  a  while.  Better  stop  here 
and  think  it  over,  R.  R. ;  you  can't  go  back  if  you  go  forward 
another  inch.  By  the  living  rock,  this  is  an  awful  piece  of 
business." 

Elaine's  heart  beat  quicker  and  quicker,  and  her  nerves 
twitched ;  he  had  wrought  her  into  a  very  fever  of  expectancy, 
while  he  was  now  calmly  engaged  in  an  almost  chemical  anal 
ysis  of  his  sensations. 

"  I  see  that  Charon  rents  boats  and  fishing  tackle;  it 
might  be  pleasant  to  take  a  little  junket  on  the  river."  Thus 
he  shoved  the  engrossing  theme  away  by  sheer  force. 

"  I  have  no  doubt  that  it  would,"  she  assented,  feeling 
that  her  emotions,  like  herself,  had  been  dragged  from  one 
place  to  another. 

And  so,  almost  before  they  were  aware  of  it,  what  with 
their  rowing  and  fishing  and  walking  and  their  fragmentary 
conversation  pushed  between,  the  afternoon  vanished,  the 
shadows  lengthened,  the  sun  sank  and  the  daylight  dwindled 
into  the  dusk. 

328 


R.   R.   DISAPPEARS 

On  the  way  homeward,  when  the  electric  car  whirled 
them  through  the  darkness,  he  lifted  himself  out  of  the  de 
pression  into  which  he  had  let  himself  sink  to  remark :  "  You'll 
be  returning  to  Chicago  soon,  almost  any  day  now;  and  I 
didn't  get  a  chance  to  talk  on  the  serious  subject  we  started." 

"  On  what  was  that?  "  Her  pale  face  flushed  and  she 
could  hear  the  beat  of  her  heart  above  the  whirr  of  the  flying 
wheels. 

The  bars  above  R.  R.'s  eyes  ridged  and  deepened. 
"  Don't  you  know?" 

"  We  talked  about  so  many  things,"  she  pleaded. 

"  Yes,  that's  so,"  he  assented  gloomily,  plunging  back 
into  the  depths  of  quiet,  muttering  to  himself  inwardly, 
"  That's  the  way  of  it;  that's  all  the  encouragement  I  get;  " 
and  then,  with  what  he  considered  a  remarkable  adroitness, 
he  changed  the  topic  of  conversation  for  the  final  time. 

When  he  left  Elaine  at  the  door  of  her  apartment  house 
in  Iowa  Circle  and  parted  with  her  for  the  night,  he  waddled 
along  Thirteenth  Street  to  Franklin  Square  and  stumbled 
over  to  a  bench  in  the  darkness.  A  half  hour  passed ;  then 
an  hour;  and  he  seemed  as  oblivious  to  the  flight  of  time  as 
if  he  had  decided  to  camp  there  for  the  night.  Finally  the 
cold  and  the  dampness  touched  his  marrow,  arousing  him 
from  his  lethargy  like  the  thump  from  a  policeman's  club. 
He  arose  slowly  and  unwillingly,  muttering  to  himself: 
"I'm  an  ass;  a  hopeless  ass,  without  even  enough  sense  to 
bray  at  the  right  time.  Was  there  ever  a  man  like  me?  " 

Was  there? 


329 


CHAPTER   XVII 

CHARITY   AND   JUSTICE 

TO  my  mind,  Senator  McAllister,"  said  Anthony,  "  pov 
erty  is  not  the  problem  you  would  make  of  it.  Leave 
it  alone  and  in  time  it  will  take  care  of  itself. 
Meanwhile,  you  had  better  put  on  an  apron  and  enjoy  the 
delights  of  humility.  There  is  nothing  like  it !  I  can  recom 
mend  it  to  everybody." 

So  by  ignoring  it  did  Sir  Anthony  solve  the  problem  of 
poverty  at  the  Convent  of  the  Little  Sisters  of  the  Poor  on 
the  occasion  when  fashion  and  diplomacy  covered  their  broad 
cloths  and  silks  to  wait  on  the  dependent  ones.  In  the  plain 
dining  room  the  paupers  were  already  seated,  intent  on  their 
fare,  graced  with  unusual  luxuries,  paying  small  heed  to  the 
mighty  who  had  humbled  themselves  to  serve. 

Bruce  was  about  to  reply  in  a  jocular  vein  when  Addison 
Hammersmith,  in  evident  search  for  somebody,  stumbled  into 
the  anteroom  where  Bruce  and  Anthony  were  conversing. 
"  Is  that  you,  old  fellow?  "  said  Addison,  espying  Bruce  and 
coming  forward  to  shake  hands  with  him.  "  Well,  upon  my 
word,  I  didn't  expect  to  find  you  here.  Ruth  pulled  me 
into  it.  Have  you  seen  her  anywhere  ?  Between  us,  I  think 
the  thing  is  a  humbug.  What  the  poor  want,  according  to 
my  idea,  is  to  be  given  plenty  of  grub  and  be  left  alone  while 
they're  eating  it." 

A  moment  afterwards  Addison  vanished,  taking  with  him 
the  aproned  Sir  Anthony,  who  was  trying  to  enjoy  the  sen- 

330 


CHARITY  AND  JUSTICE 

sation  of  poverty  the  way  most  men  would  like  to  enjoy  the 
sensation  of  riches.  The  sight  of  Addison,  naturally  recall 
ing  Inez,  whom  he  had  come  hither  in  the  hopes  of  seeing, 
set  Bruce's  heart  to  beating  quicker.  A  long  sojourn  in  New 
York  and  the  envious  months,  as  if  at  the  command  of  the 
sprite  aforesaid,  held  Bruce  and  Inez  apart;  and  even  the 
great  god  Chance,  on  whom  separated  lovers  are  wont  to  rely 
for  the  meeting  that  shall  lead  to  a  reconciliation,  had  not 
intervened  in  their  behalf;  and  as  the  days  of  the  long  session 
dwindled  on  and  on  toward  a  hurried  close,  despair  seized 
him  and  laid  a  heavy  hand  on  her. 

But  in  some  page  of  the  book  of  love  which  is  kept,  they 
say,  by  a  mischievous,  blundering  blind  man,  it  was  written 
that  these  two  should  meet,  and  had  it  not  been  so  written 
who  is  there  to  say  they  should  not  have  met  after  all?  At 
any  rate,  be  these  things  as  they  may,  Inez  seeking  the  un 
stable  Addison  entered  that  anteroom,  saw  Bruce  and  took 
a  startled  step  backward ;  and  he,  seeing  her,  remained  where 
he  was,  confused  and  at  a  loss  to  find  the  phrases  he  had 
coined  to  honor  this  very  occasion.  And  she  might  have  gone 
on  her  way  and  he  might  have  stood  where  he  was,  and  they 
might  have  remained  as  far  apart  as  if  sundered  by  the  seas, 
had  they  not  advanced  together  and  clasped  hands,  and  had 
she  not  said  to  him,  missing  a  better  phrase : 

"You  here!" 

"  Evidently,"  he  replied,  conscious  of  an  inward  trem 
bling. 

"  But  you  are  not  cast  for  a  part!  I  couldn't  imagine 
your  so  being.  What  brings  you  here?"  Her  eyes  fas 
tened  on  him  as  if  to  pierce  all  the  changes  that  the  months 
had  made  in  him ;  she  discovered  none. 

"The  hope  of  seeing  you.  And  you?"  There  was  a 
heart  beat  in  his  voice. 

331 


THE   RADICAL 

"  Accident,"  she  answered,  the  pink  encroaching  on  the 
ivory  of  her  cheeks,  and  then  she  went  on  hastily,  "  and  you 
don't  approve  of  it?"  She  wondered  if  the  uneven  tones 
of  her  voice  were  as  perceptible  to  him  as  to  her. 

Should  Democracy,  given  a  chance  to  grow  eloquent  be 
fore  Love,  eager  for  its  words  after  a  long  separation,  remain 
silent?  He  inveighed  against  an  arrangement  of  men's  lives 
that  made  necessary  the  constant  appeal  to  Charity,  who  de 
graded  and  humbled  even  while  she  gave,  conscious  that  the 
necessity  for  her  giving  wronged  the  name  she  bore.  He 
believed  that  when  Justice  swayed  the  world  Charity  would 
leave  poverty  out  of  its  benign  realms. 

Every  time  one  charitable  institution  was  built  our  con 
ditions  multiplied  the  necessity  for  ten  more;  therefore  it 
was  the  part  of  wisdom  to  obliterate  the  shameful  disease, 
the  bestial  overwork,  the  savage  exploitation  of  the  weak  by 
the  strong,  the  fear  of  want  that  shattered  the  lives  and 
health  of  men,  rather  than  to  go  on  and  on  treating  superficial 
symptoms,  results  ever,  causes  never.  When  each  man  and 
woman  did  his  and  her  share  of  the  world's  work  and  co 
operation  supplanted  caste,  when  waste  was  eliminated  and 
the  hours  of  labor  supplying  the  needs  of  man  were  reduced 
to  three,  then  would  a  life  rich  and  full  and  magnificently 
free  throw  open  all  the  long-closed  storehouses  of  nature 
and  of  art  to  all  the  sons  and  all  the  daughters  of  men. 

And  while  he  spoke,  the  aged  dependents,  bent  and 
crippled  by  time,  were  timidly  eyeing  their  plutocratic  hosts 
and  diplomats  surrounded  by  the  artistry  of  exquisite  toilets, 
combining  their  sensuous  tones  as  when  an  artist  in  an  ab 
sent  moment  plies  his  palette  recklessly  and  flits  by  accident 
upon  a  happy  effect  that  leaves  its  carefully  wrought-out 
efforts  far  behind.  The  hum  of  voices  engaged  in  trifling 
conversation,  the  light  laughter  attended  upon  quick  wit, 

332 


CHARITY   AND   JUSTICE 

the  passing  of  harmless  retorts  and  easy  compliment  whirred 
like  so  many  electric  fans  to  drive  out  the  air  musty  with 
unsavory  alms. 

And  amidst  the  contrast  of  the  strange  festivity,  Sisters 
of  the  Poor,  pale,  timid  and  subdued,  were  moving  softly  in 
and  out  of  the  little  chapel  and  the  various  adjoining  rooms, 
appearing  in  the  crowded  corridors  as  if  merely  to  lend  the 
strong  contrast  of  their  somber  black  garments  to  the  tones 
of  prevailing  brilliancy,  vanishing  from  it  as  if  religion 
impersonated  were  out  of  place  amid  worldliness  per 
sonified. 

The  silent  going  and  gentle  coming  of  these  sisters  re 
minded  one  of  the  movements  of  the  black-robed  figures, 
nuns,  monks  and  friars  from  some  middle-age  cathedral 
clock,  whose  momentary  entrance  is  but  to  proclaim  the 
flight  of  time,  and  to  suggest  the  vanity  and  the  transitoriness 
of  human  existence;  while  the  gathering  of  the  aristocratic 
reminded  one  of  the  crowds  in  the  street  that  look  up  at  the 
automatons,  wonder  for  a  second  or  two  at  the -complicated 
and  peculiar  machinery  that  gives  them  life,  and  then  straight 
way  forget  their  existence  until  the  next  hour  when  the 
images  march  out  of  their  dark  caverns  to  announce  their 
warning  presence  once  more. 

Others  flitting  through  the  room  where  Bruce  and  Inez 
stood  interrupted  their  conversation  constantly,  forcing  it  to 
change  its  course,  and  they  passed  from  one  theme  to  another, 
circling  around  but  never  touching  the  subject  that  lay  near 
est  their  hearts,  until  he  said,  boldly,  filling  a  pause  to  suit 
his  purposes,  all  his  pulses  afire: 

"  I  thought  you  had  all  but  forgotten  me." 

And  she  answered  gently,  her  voice  love-tempered :  "  You 
must  have  known  better.  Trust  a  woman  never  to  forget." 

"  Wanted  to  forget  me,"  he  amended. 
333 


THE   RADICAL 

She  looked  in  silence,  fearful  of  herself,  of  his  easy  con 
quest,  out  of  the  window  on  the  panorama  of  Washington 
that  spread  before  her;  on  the  white  dome  of  the  Capitol, 
sparkling  in  the  sunlight  as  if  hewn  out  of  crystal;  on  the 
low  dome  of  the  library,  flashing  like  a  ball  of  gold  that 
turned  in  the  strong  light  of  the  sun. 

He  repeated  his  question,  his  tones  softer. 

"  I  thought  I  wanted  to  forget  you,"  she  answered. 

"When?" 

"  Ah,  you  know." 

"  And  you  still  think  I  was  wrong  to  have  refused  you  ?  " 
he  asked. 

"  I  shouldn't  have  refused  you — I  don't  think  I  should 
have." 

"  But  if  you  had  you  would  have  found  me  more  for 
giving." 

Her  long  lashes  dropped  over  her  brown  eyes.  "  Perhaps 
I  was  harsher  than — than  I  should  have  been."  Her  voice 
caught ;  she  sought  the  view  from  the  window. 

"  I  thought  so." 

"  The  excitement  of  the  moment,  my  position — and 
you'll  admit  it  was  difficult — carried  me  away.  I  said 
things  I  shouldn't  have  said;  I  said  things  I  really  didn't 
mean." 

"  But  all  this  time  you  have  left  me  to  suffer  the  results 
of  your  injustice  and  you  never  once  hinted  to  me  your  re 
grets.  It  was  cruel  of  you !  "  The  memory  of  suffering 
endured  made  him  harden  his  heart  for  a  second.  The  sprite 
grinned. 

"  But  I  made  the  effort  to  let  you  know,  and  you  knew 
that  I  had  made  it  and  you  let  my  effort  pass  unrecognized." 
A  tender  note  crept  into  her  voice;  her  eyes  were  less  hard. 
The  sprite  held  his  breath. 

334 


CHARITY   AND  JUSTICE 

"  When  was  that?  "  he  asked,  astonished. 

"  When !  On  the  day  your  bill  passed  the  Senate,  after 
Shaw  made  his  attack  on  you." 

"  But  when  I  came  in  the  marble  room  you  had  left." 

"  But  you  must  have  known  why  I  came !  " 

He  stood  aghast  before  the  inconsequential  obstacle  that 
had  threatened  to  wreck  their  happiness,  but  now  that  a 
phrase  or  two  had  swept  it  to  one  side  he  was  conscious  only 
of  being  with  her  again,  of  moving  on  with  her  again,  while 
it  dwindled  away  into  nothingness. 

"And  the  friendship  that  you  said  could  not  continue?" 
His  voice  throbbed;  his  eyes  now,  as  if  her  answer  were  a 
thing  to  be  seen  and  not  heard,  looked  without. 

"  I  have  already  answered  that.  You  must  have  known 
I  could  not  have  meant  it.  You  were  cruel  to  have  given 
such  importance  to  a  word  spoken  in — "  memory,  impartial 
to  lovers,  flayed  her  now  with  the  recollection  of  miseries 
endured. 

"  How  could  I  have  known  ?  " 

"  By  your  intuition — you  used  to  boast  about  its  relia 
bility."  Pride,  humbled  by  its  too  easy  surrender,  strained 
against  the  manacles. 

"  I  have  been  punished  by  my  boastfulness."  The  look 
that  swept  across  his  swarthy  face  vouchsafed  for  the  truth 
in  his  words.  "  Is  our  friendship  to  continue?  " 

"  Do  you  wish  it?  "  She  faltered,  her  eyes  luminous  as 
with  tears. 

He  was  about  to  ask  how  life  for  him  could  continue 
without  it,  when  the  murmur  of  confused  words  and  light 
laughter  echoed  behind  him,  and  turning  he  beheld  that  Ve 
nus,  unwilling,  had  rilled  the  room  with  a  detached  group  of 
men  and  women.  He  was  alive  to  the  fact,  too,  that  they 
had  outstayed  the  time  alloted  by  discretion,  and  he  took  care 

335 


THE   RADICAL 

in  so  far  as  he  could  to  make  himself  a  part  of  the  peculiar 
entertainment  instead  of  holding  himself  aloof  from  it. 

Half  an  hour  afterwards  he  walked  outside  of  the  convent 
walls  and  strolled  rapidly  toward  the  Capitol.  The  Su 
preme  Court  was  to  listen  that  afternoon  to  arguments  lev 
eled  against  the  constitutionality  of  the  Child-Labor  law 
and  Bruce  was  anxious  to  see  how  the  shafts  would  strike 
the  target  at  which  they  were  being  aimed. 

He  hastened  through  the  rotunda  and  passed  the  effigies 
of  the  nation's  glorious  ones  confined  to  the  niches  of  this 
Valhalla,  and  so  made  his  way  into  the  austere  hall,  grave 
as  the  spirit  of  the  law  that  solemnly  brooded  over  its  des 
tinies.  A  screen  of  Ionic  columns,  hewn  out  of  Potomac 
marble,  made  the  background  for  the  Supreme  bench  where 
sat  enthroned  the  nine  justices,  facing  the  low-domed  semi 
circular  room,  all  its  lines  disciplined  to  a  fine  Grecian  sever 
ity  and  a  noble  chastity. 

For  the  plaintiff,  a  Georgia  cotton  manufacturer — terrible 
ogre  of  the  miracle  story  of  modern  industry! — there  spoke 
one  of  the  lawyers  admired  by  the  nation  whose  name  legal 
history  may  regret  some  day  to  associate  with  a  cause  so  poor. 
Silvery  was  his  mustache,  silvery  his  hair  and  silvery  his 
voice,  although  that  voice,  like  his  gestures,  was  held  in  sober 
restraint,  as  if  feeling  were  out  of  place  in  logic's  mansion, 
inhospitable  to  the  emotions. 

Democracy,  sensitively  aware  of  its  swarthy  hue  and 
ugly  countenance,  examined  these  nine  faces,  all  of  them  good 
to  look  on,  venerable,  conscious  of  accomplishment,  marked 
for  their  own  by  acumen  and  intellectuality — these  democracy 
examined  closely  and  felt  itself  out  of  place,  for  what  singu 
lar  reason  it  knew  not  itself.  But  casting  our  mind  far  back 
in  these  uneventful  chronicles,  and  remembering  democracy's 

336 


CHARITY  AND  JUSTICE 

impatience  with  modern  law,  let  us  be  more  patient  with  its 
discomfort  in  the  tabernacle  of  it. 

Bruce's  glittering  eyes  singled  out  Justice  Addams,  whose 
iron  mane  fell  challengingly  on  his  square  military  shoul 
ders,  and  whose  determined  countenance  looked  invincible  as 
destiny,  wise  as  its  decrees,  and  held  him,  as  it  were,  in 
the  hollow  of  his  hand  and  put  him  under  the  microscope 
of  his  fear  while  he  recalled  those  words  that  Inez  spoke  of 
him  long  ago  on  that  perfect  spring  night  in  the  garden  of 
the  Polish  embassy.  He  remembered  how  the  same  arbiter 
of  the  law,  honest,  constant  and  sincere,  according  to  his 
lights,  once  had  changed  his  so  potent  and  decisive  opinion 
between  dusk  and  dawn,  and  how  by  that  sudden  shifting 
of  attitude  democracy's  income  tax  had  been  thrown  into 
the  dust  bin  of  just  legislation. 

Bound,  then,  in  one  man's  skull,  might  beat  the  thought, 
tossed  like  an  irrevocable  shuttle  in  its  loom,  that  was  to  de 
termine  the  fate  of  his  people's  children.  Inexorable  the 
loom,  fashioned  by  the  past  and  its  prejudices  and  its  passions, 
irrevocable  the  shuttle  having  once  woven  its  thread  into 
the  warp  of  the  intricate  pattern  of  the  law!  And  of  those 
others  shall  it  not  be  said  that  they  were  human,  therefore 
fallible  too,  swayed  by  the  prejudgments  and  the  class  con 
sciousness  of  those  to  whom  they  owe  birth,  education  and 
power,  as  unable  to  represent  abstract  justice  as  democracy 
to  phrase  it! 

And  so  democracy,  brooding  there  until  its  thoughts  be 
came  as  swarthy  as  its  countenance,  reflected  that  the  nine 
fates  that  speak  the  ultimate  word  for  our  modern  prosaic 
law  of  commerce  have  echoed  in  the  long  run  the  public 
opinion  of  the  country.  But  that  public  opinion,  fallible 
as  its  interpreters,  is  often  wrong,  tyrannical,  bigoted  in  its 
attitude  toward  the  questions  that  concern  the  people  of 

337 


THE   RADICAL 

Bruce.  But  when  the  fixed  stars  move  to  their  places,  shall 
not  the  mariners  be  guided  by  the  light  they  throw,  and  shall 
not  the  sons  of  men  direct  their  course  by  the  radiant  beacon- 
light  of  public  opinion?  Though  the  common  sense  of  to 
day  be  not  the  common  sense  of  to-morrow,  and  the  mundane 
lights  shift  and  bewilder,  what  matters  it?  Follow  while 
they  shine  and  whither  they  direct! 

"  Since  this  court  speaks  the  final  word  for  things  as 
they  are,"  said  Bruce  to  himself,  the  blue  light  of  inspiration 
creeping  athwart  his  glittering  gray  eyes,  "  and  things  as 
they  are  are  wrong  to  the  core  of  them,  what  is  there  left 
for  democracy  to  do,  if  it  would  save  itself,  but  to  work  a  com 
plete  change  in  the  structure  erected  by  the  labor  of  its  hands 
and  the  sweat  of  its  brow  ?  " 

Thus  solving  its  own  problem  for  itself,  democracy  grew 
lighter  of  heart  and  took  a  human  interest  in  the  human 
comedy,  watching  the  calm  guardians  of  the  nation's  destiny 
as  they  lend  an  indifferent  ear  to  the  argument  of  the  cele 
brated  counsel,  yawning,  turning  over  papers,  glancing  per 
functorily  at  legal  documents,  as  if  their  minds  were  already 
made  up  concerning  the  merits  of  the  case,  or  rather  as  if  they 
wished  to  keep  their  thoughts  impartial  and  in  suspense 
until  they  could  hold  a  more  leisurely  and  profound  converse 
with  the  written  word. 

Celebrated  counsel  for  Mammon  drawled  on  and  on ; 
Bruce,  quite  as  weary  of  legal  platitude  as  the  nine  august 
and  potent  judges,  permitted  himself  to  yawn  like  them ;  and 
his  mind  afar,  traveled  from  the  dull  prelude  detached  from 
the  play  to  the  denouement  to.  come,  and  wondered  if  modern 
justice  refused  to  sanction  his  Child-Labor  bill  what  modern 
charity  would  do  for  the  children  of  his  people. 


338 


CHAPTER   XVIII 

SHACKLED 

IN  the  room  of  the  Committee  of  Military  Affairs,  eleven 
senators  were  massing  their  wits  to  frame  a  bill  that 
would  give  the  militia  power  to  cope  with  any  emer 
gency  an  unreliable  hour  might  bring  forth.  Hard  times 
frowned  down  on  the  country  again,  and  labor,  used  to  bet 
ter  things,  roared  at  the  taking  away  of  its  fleshpot  and  men 
aced  industry  after  industry  with  strike  after  strike. 

Commerce,  hard  pushed,  was  crying  out  bitterly  for  stern 
measures.  Labor  was  refusing  to  enroll  in  the  State  mili 
tary  organizations,  and  already  the  chiefs  of  railroad  brother 
hoods  wrere  locking  horns  with  presidents,  and  the  coal  miners, 
lifting  listless  shovels,  were  hearkening  for  the  call  to  quit 
work.  A  social  upheaval  threatened  to  overthrow  industry 
unless  the  voice  of  authority  stopped  it  before  impassioned 
rebellion  got  well  under  way. 

To  history  —  proud  may  we  be  of  the  conquest  —  belongs 
now  the  Public  Military  law  that  made  every  able-bodied 
citizen  a  member  of  the  militia  and  the  militia  itself  an  aux 
iliary  of  the  national  army.  Let  history  then  pronounce  the 
verdict  and  pass  the  comment,  here  only  we  record  what  has 
escaped  her  blazoned  rolls  and  belongs  to  her  vulgar  and 
loquacious  handmaid,  oral  tradition. 

The  vulgar  one  tells  us  that  on  a  certain  Thursday  morn 
ing  there  appeared  before  the  committee  composed  of  wool 
and  of  cotton,  of  mines,  law  and  railroads,  a  hard-headed 

339 


THE   RADICAL 

son  of  toil,  sent  hither  to  protest  against  the  bill  in  the  name 
of  his  class.  This  Caliban,  short,  fat-armed,  black-bearded, 
salaamed  to  commerce's  senators,  gazing  on  him  coldly  as 
the  commodities  they  personified  and  fastening  his  blue  eyes 
on  Bruce  McAllister,  hated  by  trade,  he  hurled  bitter  words 
against  the  bill,  his  short  arms  gesticulating  vehement  hatred. 

He  summoned  imagination  to  his  aid  and  bade  the  sen 
ators  travel  with  him  to  Rome,  where  the  crude  fellow  had 
the  impudence  to  ask  history  herself  to  illustrate  and  enrich 
his  arguments.  To  such  a  pass  has  arrant  democracy  forced 
us  nowadays ! 

"  The  slaves,"  spake  he,  "  in  one  of  the  provinces  of  this 
ancient  Rome  conspire  to  set  themselves  free.  To  consum 
mate  their  purpose  they  agree  to  break  the  laws,  to  burn  down 
the  fortresses  of  their  masters,  even  to  shed  blood  if  need 
be.  It  is,  of  course,  the  duty  of  the  captain  of  Caesar's  le 
gions  to  slaughter  this  revolting  rabble.  And  yet,  looking 
backward,  we  ask  had  he  the  moral  right  to  kill  those  war 
ring  for  the  liberty  nature  gave  them  ?  Well,  to-day  having 
won  political  and  religious  liberty  our  wage  slaves  rise  to  war 
for  economic  equality.  Will  the  laws  of  humanity,  greater 
than  the  laws  of  the  Caesars,  sanction  our  shooting  them 
down?" 

"Anarchy!"  was  the  senators'  indignant  response;  and 
refused  further  argument  the  militant  son  of  toil  angrily 
sought  the  arched  doors.  Then  spoke  McAllister,  who  had 
sat  in  deep  quiet,  his  knees  pressed  tightly  against  the  edge 
of  the  mahogany  table. 

He  abhorred  force  and  the  baying  dogs  it  let  loose  and  he 
arraigned  the  crushing  of  a  strike  by  mere  force  of  arms.  A 
strike  was  a  symptom,  not  a  disease,  and  the  aim  of  society 
should  be  to  cure  the  disease,  not  to  eradicate  the  symptom 
by  sheer  brutality. 

340 


SHACKLED 

Thus  he  spoke,  argument  and  counter-argument  gleam 
ing  like  blades  now,  and  his  opponents  crossed  hot  swords 
with  him,  striving  to  leave  him  weaponless. 

The  battle,  uninteresting,  maybe,  for  those  who  had  no 
part  in  it,  went  on  fiercer  and  fiercer  until  Fiske  spoke  in 
quivering  voice  and  then  all  were  hushed,  paying  heed  to  the 
words  of  Nestor,  left  spiritless  and  broken-hearted  by  his 
daughter's  death.  White-haired,  thin  and  stooped,  infirm 
of  gait,  he  was  a  changed  man.  Even  Shaw,  sitting  there, 
was  almost  moved  to  tears  by  the  voice  of  the  erstwhile 
powerful  Fiske,  shadowy  as  if  it  had  come  from  the  sepul 
chral  realms  of  death  whither  he  was  about  to  depart.  With 
him  now  Sydney  yearned  to  make  his  peace. 

Fiske's  piping  voice  proclaimed  that  both  capital  and 
labor  must  be  awakened  to  a  higher  consciousness  of  their 
duties ;  and  meanwhile,  since  it  was  ordained  that  there  were 
to  be  rich  and  poor,  laborer  and  master  in  the  world,  the  Gov 
ernment  must  preserve  peace  between  the  two.  Law  and 
order  must  be  maintained  at  all  costs!  After  the  saying  of 
this  he  lapsed  into  quiet,  his  big  head  sinking  slowly  toward 
his  breast. 

Our  hero  declared  that  the  pristine  gods  Law  and  Order 
had  no  more  ardent  worshiper  than  he,  only  their  altar  fires 
must  not  be  fed  with  the  substance  and  the  life  blood  of  his 
people. 

Out  flashed  controversy's  swords  again,  aimed  as  one 
against  our  hero's  heart,  and  he,  aweary  of  the  unequal  fray, 
retreated  from  the  field  silent  and  gloomy.  He  felt  sepa 
rated  as  widely  from  the  others  as  if  continents  held  them 
apart ;  and  as  we  feel  so  do  we  think,  and  his  way  of  feeling 
was  not  their  way,  and  he  never  could  prevail  upon  them 
to  mete  out  justice  to  his  people,  who  were  not  their  people. 

A  sense  of  utter  aloofness  weighed  him  down.  What 
341 


THE   RADICAL 

availed  the  struggle?  Victory  was  impossible  unless  he  sur 
rendered  his  captaincy  over  the  humble  and  ranged  himself 
on  the  side  of  the  mighty.  Victory  turned  into  defeat,  de 
feat  after  defeat,  and  even  his  own  signal  victory  itself  pro 
claimed  his  hopes  so  many  dupes.  Could  not  he  use  his 
energies  and  gifts  to  a  better  purpose  than  squandering  them 
in  prodigal  wastefulness  here?  His  soul,  taking  flight  else 
where,  far  beyond  the  confines  of  that  room,  brought  him 
his  answer ;  and  he  sat  there  heedless  of  what  went  on  around 
him,  deaf  to  all  words,  the  gray  gradually  dying  out  of  his 
eyes  and  leaving  them  a  vivid  blue. 

Shortly  after  twelve,  the  work  of  drafting  the  bill  almost 
accomplished,  yawning,  worn  out  with  the  stress  of  fatiguing 
emotions,  Bruce  was  walking  with  slow,  heavy  steps  through 
the  basement  corridors  when  he  suddenly  encountered  little 
Butler. 

"  I've  been  looking  for  you,  Bruce,"  said  the  correspond 
ent  excitedly. 

"  What's  up,  Ed  ? "  he  asked,  wondering  what  meant 
his  friend's  agitation. 

"  I'm  sorry  to  tell  you — I  know  how  you'll  feel  about 
it — but  I  thought  you'd  be  anxious  to  hear.  You  mustn't 
ask  me  how  I  found  out,  but  I've  learned  that  the  Supreme 
Court  is  going  to  kill  your  Anti  Child^Labor  bill.  A  clause 
in  it  has  been  found  unconstitutional." 

"  Hm!  You  don't  say!  Well,  I  can't  pretend  that  I'm 
exactly  surprised,"  he  choked  out  in  a  voice  that  told  but  too 
plainly  how  thin  after  all  was  the  buffer  preparation  had  put 
between  him  and  his  disappointment. 

Curtly,  unceremoniously,  he  left  Butler,  almost  as  if  for 
getful  of  his  presence,  and  with  step  still  slower  and  more 
heavy  he  moved  up  the  curving  bronze  stairway  to  the  lobby 
that  led  to  the  chamber. 

342 


SHACKLED 

He  paused  suddenly,  coming  to  a  standstill  before  the 
door  that  gave  on  the  Senate,  as  if  the  thought  that  had  in 
spired  him  were  a  hand  put  forth  to  hold  him  back.  "  I'm 
not  going  in  there  to  be  shackled  again,"  he  said  to  himself 
solemnly.  "  Free  and  unfettered,  I'm  going  to  take  my  cause 
out  on  a  fair  field  before  the  people." 

Slowly  he  walked  out  into  the  corridor  toward  the  ele 
vator,  his  head  bent,  his  hands  clasped  behind  him,  and  he 
narrowly  averted  bumping  into  the  graceful  Sydney  P.  Shaw, 
strolling  along  in  his  easy,  confident  way.  "  Coming  back 
for  the  afternoon  session,  McAllister?  "  asked  Shaw,  deferen 
tial  to  Bruce  since  the  last  episode  in  the  Senate. 

"  I  guess  not,"  replied  Bruce  with  a  melancholy  look 
that  Shaw  never  forgot;  "I've  just  concluded  that  it  isn't 
fair  to  take  up  space  on  the  ballroom  floor  if  you  can't  dance." 


343 


CHAPTER   XIX 

SIR   ANTHONY    RIDES    TO    THE    RESCUE 

RUMOR,  presaging  the  truth,  as  it  does  now  and  then 
when  it  takes  the  notion,  busied  itself  spreading 
through  Washington  stories  to  the  effect  that  Mr. 
Hammersmith  stood  in  danger  of  financial  ruin.  His  un 
fortunate  investment  in  Shaw's  Excelsior  Developing  Com 
pany  had  dragged  him  to  the  brink  of  bankruptcy  some  time 
ago,  but  he  had  managed  by  the  assistance  of  friends  and  his 
own  clever  manipulation  to  draw  away  from  that  perilous 
situation.  But  now  the  hard  times  and  the  panic  were  hol 
lowing  out  the  value  of  his  other  securities  and  holdings,  and 
the  foundation  of  his  fortune  threatened  to  tumble  and  drag 
down  with  a  crash  the  entire  structure  erected  on  it. 

A  quiet,  self-sacrificing  man,  heroic  in  his  modest  way, 
his  whole  life  had  been  given  up  practically  to  satisfying  the 
wants  of  his  family,  and  even  now  his  last  thought  was  for 
himself.  He  had  speculated  with  their  money  and  if  they 
should  blame  him  severely  for  it,  he  would  complain  of  no 
injustice  in  the  reproach. 

He  always  had  kept  his  affairs  to  himself,  never  caring 
to  bother  his  wife  with  the  dry  details  of  business,  but  now 
circumstances  compelled  him  to  tell  her  all.  Both  did  their 
best  to  hide  their  worries  behind  a  mien  of  outer  content. 
Mrs.  Hammersmith  proved  equal  to  the  effort;  but  as  the 
outlook  grew  more  and  more  dismal,  the  fortitude  of  one 

344 


SIR   ANTHONY   RIDES  TO  THE  RESCUE 

day  was  undermined  by  the  increasing  bad  news  of  the  next, 
and  he  moved  through  the  house,  glum,  silent,  dark  of  visage. 

Nothing  is  more  difficult  than  to  keep  the  secret  that  we 
have  a  secret;  for  the  very  effort  to  which  we  go  to  hide 
our  knowledge  soon  weaves  a  telling  atmosphere  of  its  own 
around  us.  Inez,  putting  together  what  she  saw  now  and 
what  she  had  learned  before,  reached  a  dismal  but  none  the 
less  truthful  conclusion. 

Slowly  and  for  a  long  time  the  conviction  had  been 
growing  on  her  that  all  this  wealth  and  magnificence  had 
not  dropped  like  manna  from  the  skies,  but  that  work  and 
care  and  anxiety  had  provided  the  rich  furnishing  for  the 
stage  on  which  she  had  acted  a  part  that  seemed  unworthy  of 
her  now.  Her  father  had  been,  it  dawned  on  her,  like  a 
stage  carpenter  who  had  designed  and  made  the  rich  setting 
wherein  others  might  appear  to  their  best  advantage  and  in 
which  he  himself,  the  appurtenances  once  being  fashioned, 
took  small  pleasure.  Her  thought  for  herself  was  altogether 
submerged  in  her  worry  for  others  and  she  was  occupied 
solely  in  devising  means  that  might  lighten  their  burdens. 

The  change  in  Inez  was  not  sudden.  The  century  plant 
bursts  into  bloom  in  a  single  night;  but,  behold!  through 
all  the  long  laborious  years  every  cell  and  fibre  of  the  whole 
organism  has  been  toiling,  silent  and  unseen,  each  contribu 
ting  its  mite,  like  the  bee  to  its  hive,  toward  building  up  the 
flower  that  is  in  one  night  so  suddenly  to  bourgeon  forth. 
And  so  with  Inez,  unguessed,  unseen,  unknown,  the  events, 
the  thoughts,  the  experiences  of  the  last  years  had  been  stor 
ing  up  in  her  soul  all  the  different  and  varied  elements  that 
combined  with  such  seeming  suddenness  in  this  one  hour  to 
bring  forth  the  fine  flower  of  her  unselfishness. 

And  all  through  that  long  period  of  suspense  and  trial 
Inez  recalled  often  what  Bruce  had  said  to  her  about  the 
23  345 


THE  RADICAL 

fear  of  want.  She  never  had  dreamed  that  his  words  could 
have  any  warm  personal  bearing  for  her,  that  they  could 
plead  afterwards  like  a  voice  in  her  ear ;  and  now  the  specter 
he  had  painted  so  vividly  was  stalking  boldly  in  the  parlor 
below,  mayhap  was  frowning  in  the  bedroom  where  her  father 
and  mother  lay,  unable  to  sleep,  frightened  by  the  rash  intru 
sion  of  the  forbidding  phantom.  The  personal  factor  again 
changed  the  meaning  of  Bruce's  preachment  for  her.  It 
struck  home  as  a  fact;  it  stood  no  longer  aloof  as  a  theory 
wherein  a  sated  intellect  might  find  the  sensation  of  new 
pleasures.  Self-interest  which  may  kindle  its  light  at  the 
vestal  fires  of  love,  faithfulness  and  the  highest  devotion,  is 
the  star  by  which  life  guides  the  vessel  of  self,  and  as  the 
star  shifts  so  must  its  course  vary. 

However,  the  hand  of  an  unseen  good  fortune  stayed 
the  blow  that  Inez's  imagination  pictured  as  struck  in  ad 
vance,  for  at  the  moment  when  all  seemed  the  blackest  Sir 
Anthony  rode  to  the  rescue.  Sir  Anthony's  right  hand  did 
many  things  that  his  left  hand  never  knew,  nor  was  this,  as 
some  of  his  harsh  critics  would  have  us  believe,  because  he 
wished  to  keep  the  respect  of  that  member. 

If  business  was  business  to  Sir  Anthony,  friendship  was 
friendship,  and  to  what  friends  he  had  he  could  be  both  gen 
erous  and  magnanimous — there  are  those  who  say  he  had  no 
friends  at  all.  They  were  mistaken;  his  stanchness  to  Mr. 
Hammersmith  proved  it.  When  things  were  at  their  worst 
and  Addison,  taking  counsel  with  his  mother,  laid  the  truth 
of  the  situation  before  his  future  father-in-law,  Anthony 
scolded  that  artless  youth  for  the  hazardous  delay,  and  he 
was  as  quick  and  ready  to  loan  Mr.  Hammersmith  the  use 
of  his  money  as  ninety-nine  people  out  of  every  hundred 
would  have  been  to  lend  him — their  sympathy  and  advice. 

And  so  dark  rumors  that  passed  current  as  good  coin  of 
346 


SIR   ANTHONY   RIDES  TO  THE   RESCUE 

the  realm  in  Washington  gossip  were  withdrawn  shortly 
after  they  were  put  in  circulation,  but  not  before  our  hero 
had  been  disturbed  by  them.  The  thought  of  the  beautiful 
Inez  impoverished,  saddened  him,  and  yet  out  of  that  very 
sadness,  as  a  flower  may  spring  up  in  a  ruin,  there  was  born 
the  hope  that  their  union  might  be  founded  on  her  shattered 
fortunes  and  his  own.  The  feeling  that  one  whom  he  loved 
with  all  his  being  might  hold  him  responsible  for  her  reverses 
added  nothing  to  his  comfort  of  heart  or  his  peace  of  mind. 
He  knew  that  he  could  find  surcease  from  pain  only  in  her 
presence,  and  the  rumor  scarcely  had  reached  him  when  he 
was  found  awaiting  her  in  the  library  where  the  malevolent 
sprite,  happily  absent  now,  had .  turned  his  world  topsy 
turvy.  A  sense  of  coolness  pervaded  the  room.  The  light 
filtered  in  softly  through  the  high,  long,  stained-glass  win 
dows,  and  the  green  rug  and  the  subdued  tones  of  wall  and 
curtain  and  furnishing  were  grateful  to  one  who  just  had 
passed  through  the  glaring  heat  outside. 

Time  was  when  the  regal  magnificence  of  this  house  had 
thrust  invisible  barriers  between  him  and  her,  for  whom  it 
served  as  a  fitting  background  for  her  queenliness ;  but  grad 
ually  the  surroundings  had  receded  farther  and  farther  from 
dominance  as  his  imagination  lifted  her  triumphantly  above 
them.  She  had  sanctified  them  as  her  so  benign  presence 
would  have  sanctified  any  place  where  she  happened  to  be, 
and  even  downright  democracy,  evoking  her  beautiful  image 
out  of  the  host  of  suggestions  of  her  with  which  every  cor 
ner  of  the  room  was  redolent,  found  even  its  overburden 
ing  luxuries  dear.  A  quickened  heartbeat  announced  her 
coming. 

Her  brown  eyes,  love-lit,  fastened  on  him.  "  Why,  how 
worn  you  look,"  surprise  prompted  her  to  say. 

Her  sympathy  touched  him  like  a  tender  caress.  "  It's 
347 


THE   RADICAL 

one  of  the  little  perquisites  of  politics,"  he  smiled.  Endear 
ing  words  hung  a-tremble  on  his  lips;  the  call  of  the  blood 
in  him  was  strong  and  he  gathered  all  his  strength  to  resist 
the  temptation  to  proclaim  his  passion  for  her,  to  fold  her, 
protest  though  she  might,  in  his  arms.  By  sheer  force  he 
made  love  stand  in  abeyance  while  duty  spun  the  fine  web 
of  its  argument. 

Dexterously  he  turned  the  conversation  away  from  his 
own  trials  to  hers,  hinting  as  lightly  as  he  could  that  the 
defeat  of  the  Shaw  bill  might  be  responsible  for  the  failure 
of  the  house  of  Hammersmith. 

She  smiled  on  him,  the  love-light  flitting  across  her  lim 
pid  brown  eyes.  "  We  were  more  fortunate  than  others  " 
— she  flew  to  the  distress  she  divined — "  and  I  believe  my 
father's  investment  leaves  him  little  to  regret." 

"  I  am  glad  of  it;  heartily  glad."  A  broad  smile  played 
across  the  long  lips  of  his  mouth,  bespeaking  his  relief,  then 
his  face  shadowed  perceptibly  again.  Love,  growing  faint  of 
heart,  rent  him. 

Her  whole  spirit,  all  her  being  moved  toward  him,  was 
shocked  by  the  peculiar  change  of  expression  that  shadowed 
his  swarthy  face  and  stood  at  gaze  to  wonder  at  it. 

"  Glad,  that  is,  beyond  measure  for  your  sake;  sorry  for 
mine,"  he  answered,  reading  her  wonderment.  Passion  ris 
ing,  rising,  threatened  to  whirl  over  the  dam  built  by  his 
restraint  and  carry  him  away  with  its  barriers. 

She  looked  a  question,  bending  toward  him,  her  warm 
fragrant  breath  on  his  cheek. 

His  words  rushed  to  his  lips  torrentwise,  then  he  checked 
himself  and  spoke  with  seeming  deliberateness :  "I  thought 
to  approach  you  on  a  basis  of  equality.  I  thought  I  would 
come  to  you  and  make  what  I  have  your  own.  I  had  position 

then,  a  future — I  offered  them  once  to  you  and " 

348 


SIR   ANTHONY   RIDES  TO  THE   RESCUE 

"  And  I  challenged  your  sincerity,  I  know ;  but  have  I 
regretted  anything  more  since  than  my  perfect  unreasonable 
ness?" 

"  But  now  " — he  hesitated,  looking  at  her  as  if  to  garner 
the  word  of  permission  to  go  on. 

Her  breast  heaved,  pink  colored  her  ivory  cheeks,  a  soft 
expression  in  her  brown  eyes  signaled  him  to  risk  all  nor  be 
afraid.  He  advanced. 

"  But  now  I  find  you,  secure  as  you  were,  put  beyond  the 
fear  of  want,  while  I — I  have  lost  what  little  you  might  have 
valued."  He  looked  at  her  beseechingly,  longingly,  as  if  life 
itself  had  passed  from  him  into  her  hands  and  she  were  the 
arbiter  of  its  future. 

"  Enlighten  me.  I  am  quite  in  the  dark,"  she  entreated 
gently.  She  took  him  metaphorically. 

"  I  have  resigned  from  the  Senate!  " 

"You  have?" 

"  Yes,  I  sent  my  resignation  last  night  to  the  gov 
ernor." 

"  Why?  "  Astonishment  took  her  from  love's  world  to 
the  less  entrancing  realm  of  affairs. 

Feeling  the  change,  he  changed  to  meet  it.  "  The  pathos 
of  wasted  effort  appalled  me."  His  voice  was  the  man's  and 
not  the  lover's. 

"And  when?"  Her  admiration  for  his  strength  and 
power  of  conviction  swept  her  back  to  the  world  out  of  which 
she  had  passed. 

"  It  has  been  with  me  since  the  beginning,  when  they 
tried  to  ridicule  me  out  of  my  ideals." 

"  And  so  made  themselves  ridiculous!  " 

"  From  our  point  of  view,  maybe,  not  from  theirs.  I 
eluded  every  snare  they  spread  under  my  feet :  women,  money, 
place.  And  even  where  a  man's  heart  is  softest,  even  when 

349 


THE  RADICAL 

they  tried  to  win  me  by  offering  my  brother  Peter  a  coveted 
position,  I  could  refuse." 

"  Strongest  of  men,"  she  murmured  admiringly,  the  words 
half  spoken  to  herself,  half  to  him. 

He  nodded,  carried  beyond  himself  as  it  were,  beyond 
her  by  the  confession  he  was  bent  on  making.  "  They 
maligned  me ;  they  spread  false  reports  about  me.  They  did 
all  in  their  power  to  ruin  me  politically.  They  charged  me 
publicly  and  privately  with  being  a  demagogue  and  a  char 
latan.  But  that  is  the  usual  course  through  which  sincerity 
must  run,  and  I  took  it  for  granted,  heeding  it  hardly  at 
all." 

"  And  then  I,  too,  came  to  tempt  you,"  burst  in  Inez 
warmly.  She  arose  from  her  chair  and  stood  beside  him. 
She  had  been  moved  and  thrilled  strangely  by  what  he  said 
in  his  own  behalf — said  like  one  who  would  put  under  his 
feet  the  sum  of  his  past  accomplishments  with  a  just  pride 
merely  that  he  may  climb  by  way  of  them  to  greater  heights 
and  still  bigger  victories.  It  was  to  her  as  if  his  own  lips 
had  attempted  to  render  him  the  praise  he  deserved  and  failed 
in  their  task  through  timidity  or  modesty. 

"Would  you  make  little  of  that  last  temptation?"  she 
asked,  after  a  pause,  lovingly,  her  eyes  bent  full  on  him,  all 
the  woman  in  her  challenged. 

"  If  that  last  temptation  had  come  first  I  might  have 
given  way  to  it ;  but  I  became  stronger  as  I  went  along,"  he 
smiled,  it  seemed  to  her  as  through  tears;  and  in  his  rugged 
ugliness  she  discovered  him  handsome. 

"No,  no,  don't  say  that!"  she  pleaded  ardently,  pas 
sionately;  "  I  won't  let  you  say  that!  You  are  too  modest 
in  your  own  behalf.  You  would  always  have  been  honest, 
I  know."  It  was  as  if  she  were  daring  all  the  world,  not 
him,  to  pronounce  otherwise. 

350 


SIR   ANTHONY  RIDES  TO  THE  RESCUE 

"  I  am  glad  you  approve  of  what  I  have  done,  Inez,  dear 
est,"  he  returned,  the  endearment  slipping  from  him  before  he 
was  aware,  taking  advantage  of  his  devotion  to  his  utterance. 
He  paused,  half  expecting  reproof ;  she  offered  none.  "  I 
feared  you  might  consider  it  a  straining  after  the  heroic." 
he  went  on.  "  I  don't  want  to  appear  as  a  self-made  martyr ; 
I  wished  only  to  do  what  I  thought  was  the  upright  and 
manly  thing  to  do." 

"Blame  you!  I  blame  you,  Bruce  McAllister?  I  seek 
words  to  express  the  admiration  I  feel  for  you!  I  doubted 
you  once — it  is  right  that  I  acknowledge  it — and  I  wonder 
how  I  could  have  done  so  now."  She  felt  the  blood  beat 
at  the  blue  veins  in  her  temples,  her  breath  come  slow,  her 
spirit  rush  to  his  once  more. 

"  We  have  both  to  ask  forgiveness  of  the  past,  Inez,  and 
the  past  ought  to  grant  it — it  has  made  us  suffer  so." 

"  I  have  been  very  hard  and  very  cruel,"  she  said  con 
tritely,  her  eyes  finding  his  and  resting  there  as  if  from  him 
she  would  not,  if  she  could,  remove  her  gaze.  For  him,  in 
love's  conceit,  she  symbolized  his  past,  all  time  gone  and  all 
to  come.  "  I  will  be  so  no  more."  She  was  abashed  and 
humbled  by  his  presence  and  she  could  express  her  feeling 
of  inferiority  only  by  dwelling  on  the  superior  heights  to 
which  she  insisted  he  had  attained. 

"  I  am  thankful,"  she  ended,  her  words  surcharged  with 
affection,  with  sincerity,  "  that  even  our  day  had  its  heroes 
and  that  I,  so  unworthy,  have  been  privileged  to  know  one 
of  them.  You  believe  me,  don't  you,  won't  you  ?  " 

She  felt  the  ebb  and  flow  of  her  blood  coursing  through 
her  veins  and  she  wavered  toward  him,  her  body  swaying 
as  if  passion-tossed.  He  would  have  been  stone  blind  not  to 
have  read  the  love  that  was  written,  nay,  that  was  carved, 
on  her  glowing  countenance. 

351 


THE  RADICAL 

His  long  arms  spread  out,  sweeping  toward  her,  and  he 
said,  the  words  long  contained  suddenly  bursting  from  him, 
"  I  love  you,  Inez  dearest,"  and  she  sank  into  them,  sobbing. 
So  falls  dawn  into  the  arms  of  day,  easily,  as  nature,  the 
mother  of  us  all,  orders  it.  Her  head  rested  on  his  breast, 
heeding  not  the  aid  of  his  tenderly  directing  hand ;  their  lips 
touched  and  their  spirits  became  as  one. 


352 


CHAPTER   XX 

CROSSING   THE   RUBICON 

A  SMALL  but  strong  minority  of  the  legislature  of  Illi 
nois,  thenjn  session,  fought  hard  against  the  accept 
ance  of  Bruce  McAllister's  resignation  from  the  Sen 
ate.  However  slight,  it  was  still  a  much  greater  evidence  of 
popular  favor  than  Bruce  had  expected.  Rightly  he  concluded 
that  unfavorable  winds  had  not  blown  on  arid  soil  all  the 
seeds  of  his  sowing.  His  words,  spreading  far,  must  have 
availed  somewhat  and  found  response  somewhere.  His 
heart  was  lifted  beyond  the  reach  of  despondency,  and  he  be 
lieved  more  fervently  than  ever  that  the  years,  no  matter  how 
begrudingly,  must  yield  inevitably  to  the  justice  of  his  cause. 
Hope  deferred  will  make  even  the  lion-hearted  sick,  and  the 
faith  that  the  future  would  fulfil  his  desire  had  come  at  a 
moment  when  it  was  most  needed. 

Inez  rejoiced  with  him,  converted  heart  and  soul  to  his 
tenets,  inspired  by  his  message  for  humanity.  She  was  ready 
to  range  herself  at  his  side  though  all  the  rest  of  the  world 
stood  against  them.  A  two-fold  cord  of  love  bound  her  to 
the  man  and  his  doctrines.  She  was  stepping  out  of  her  en 
vironment,  away  from  her  class;  but  the  separation  from 
what  had  become  unsatisfying  caused  her  to  shed  no  tears. 
The  light  had  come  to  her  after  a  long  struggle,  and  she  was 
too  goodly  stubborn  to  turn  back  into  the  darkness,  she  was 
willing  to  leave  an  objecting  father  and  a  disappointed  moth- 

353 


THE   RADICAL 

er  to  follow  him;  but  when  they  came  to  an  understanding 
of  her  resoluteness  they  scarcely  could  do  otherwise  than  ac 
quiesce  in  her  choice,  and  so  Bruce  and  Inez,  who  planned 
a  quiet  marriage  in  Chicago,  were  to  depart  with  the  paternal 
and  maternal  blessing  that  has  passed  from  convention  into 
proverb. 

In  accordance  with  the  arrangements  hit  upon  as  best  by 
Bruce  and  Addison,  Inez,  together  with  her  mother  and  fa 
ther,  was  to  return  to  Chicago  on  the  same  train  with  Bruce, 
Peter,  and  Elaine ;  and  on  the  morning  chosen  for  the  depar 
ture,  the  McAllisters  stood  on  the  platform  of  the  Pennsyl 
vania  depot  waiting  anxiously  for  the  Hammersmiths  to  put 
in  their  appearance.  Peter  absorbed  as  usual  with  a  vexa 
tious  problem  in  chemistry,  strode  up  and  down  quickly, 
unmindful  of  the  morning's  blistering  heat,  of  the  roll  of 
the  trunk  trucks,  the  bawling  of  the  conductors,  the  clang 
and  clatter  of  moving  engines  and  cars.  Although  there  was 
nothing  in  his  demeanor  to  show  it,  Peter's  heart  too  was 
big  with  hope,  for  he  had  been  offered  a  professorship  in 
one  of  the  far  Western  universities,  and  at  last  there  was 
promised  him  the  leisure  necessary  for  the  working  out  of  his 
revolutionary  theories. 

Bruce  himself  was  anxious,  oddly  nervous,  keeping  a  sharp 
lookout  for  the  Hammersmiths  and  Inez,  fearful  lest  some 
unexpected  accident  disrupt  his  fondly  laid  plans  and  do — 
he  scarcely  dared  to  tell  himself  what.  Elaine  too,  was  look 
ing  for  somebody,  and  her  sharp  eyes  gleamed  through  her 
spectacles  and  fastened  on  the  high  iron  fence  through  the 
gates  of  which  people  were  passing  in  and  out  the  noisy  depot. 
Had  the  preoccupation  of  either  brother  been  less,  it  might 
have  been  noticed  that  the  cause  of  some  unwonted  excite 
ment  was  suffusing  Elaine's  pale  face  with  a  glow  of  color. 
It  struck  her,  as  she  gazed  around,  that  a  picture  of  life  in 

354 


CROSSING  THE  RUBICON 

little  was  presented  by  the  railway  depot,  with  its  constant 
goings  and  comings,  its  separation  and  union  of  friends,  its 
mingling  of  sad  and  happy  faces,  the  uncertainties  and  the 
varied  fortunes  that  awaited  those  who  entered  or  left  its 
portals.  Her  own  hopes  for  this  very  morning,  her  own  fear- 
fulness  of  its  outcome  exaggerated  the  tragic  or  comic  side 
of  every  incident  that  she  observed.  Bruce's  nervousness 
increased  her  own;  and  she  clutched  his  arm  in  a  way  that 
would  have  awakened  his  surprise  ordinarily. 

"There  she  comes!"  sang  out  Bruce  suddenly,  spying 
Addison  and  Inez  at  the  gate,  followed  by  their  mother  and 
father.  He  rushed  forward  to  meet  her,  leaving  Elaine 
where  she  stood. 

"  Had  you  given  me  up?  "  asked  Inez  smiling. 

"  Not  anywhere  so  near  as  six  months  ago,"  he  answered. 

Elaine  and  Peter  kept  to  one  side  timidly,  neither  quite 
used  as  yet  to  their  sister-in-law  to  be,  and  rather  constrained 
by  her  presence.  Addison  with  characteristic  good  nature 
and  activity  tried  his  level  best  to  put  the  McAllisters  at 
ease  with  the  Hammersmiths. 

"  I'm  mighty  glad  that  Bruce  is  going  to  come  into  our 
family.  I  always  felt  toward  him  like  a  brother  anyway. 
I  don't  know  which  is  the  luckier,  Bruce  or  Inez,"  he  said 
to  Peter  and  Elaine,  not  once  but  twenty  times. 

And  then  taking  Bruce  to  one  side,  and  engaging  him  in 
a  conversation,  he  eased  his  overladen  heart  by  pouring  forth 
his  troubles  in  that  most  sympathetic  of  ears.  *  Things  were 
all  right  to  begin  with,  Bruce,"  ran  his  plaint,  "  but  only 
the  other  day  Mr.  Wyckoff  told  me  that  he  expected  me 
to  pitch  in  and  work  like  the  mischief  the  moment  I  get 
married  to  Ruth.  He  has  the  idea  that  I  am  no  better  than 
a  clerk  and  he  insists  on  taking  me  to  New  York  to  break 
me  in.  He  seems  to  think  that  eight  or  ten  hours  a  day  at 

355 


THE   RADICAL 

the  grindstone  would  be  good  for  my  health.  And  the  worst 
of  it  is  that  my  own  parents  and  Inez  agree  with  him.  I 
dread  it.  But  what  can  I  do  about  it  now  ?  I  like  him  and 
yet  I'm  afraid  of  him — I  don't  know  just  why,  but  he  looks 
at  you  with  his  little  eyes  and  rolls  out  what  he  wants  done 
in  his  deep  voice  and  you've  got  to  say  that  you'll  do  it." 

Meanwhile,  Inez,  noticing  Elaine's  timidity,  twined  her 
arm  around  her  waist  affectionately  and  said :  "  We  won't 
have  much  time  to  be  sisterly  in  Washington,  so  let  us  im 
prove  these  few  minutes." 

The  two  young  women  were  chatting  together  pleasantly 
when  Elaine  caught  sight  of  R.  R.  shambling  along  with  an 
eager,  expectant  countenance,  and  blushing  she  ran  forward 
to  call  to  him.  He  grinned  recognition  in  his  habitual  man 
ner,  and  thrust  out  his  ridge  of  brow.  Under  his  arm,  peep 
ing  bashfully  from  their  covering  of  torn  tissue  paper,  he 
carried  a  bouquet  of  roses  of  which  he  seemed  thoroughly 
ashamed,  for  he  thrust  them  back  farther  and  reddened  the 
moment  he  saw  Elaine's  companion.  "  Didn't  know  this 
was  to  be  a  society  event,"  he  muttered  to  himself. 

"  I've  been  hunting  all  over  for  you,"  he  growled  on  join 
ing  Elaine.  "  I've  gone  the  rounds  of  the  depot  about  a 
thousand  times.  I've  hunted  high  and  low  for  you.  I 
thought  you  would  be  in  the  waiting  room  and  I  looked  for 
you  there.  Finally  I  came  out  here  and  then  the  fool  gate- 
man  put  me  on  the  wrong  track.  I  suppose  these  roses 
are  all  withered  to  pieces.  They  ought  to  be;  it  serves  you 
about  right  for  making  me  stand  on  my  head  like  this.  Come 
down  to  the  end  of  the  train  and  I'll  give  them  to  you — 
there's  no  need  of  your  brothers'  seeing,  it's  none  of  their 
business,  is  it  ?  Everybody  in  Washington  is  hanging  around 
whenever  I  want  to  do  anything — except  to  sell  a  picture." 
He  stopped,  panting  for  breath,  and  mopped  the  sweat  that 

356    . 


CROSSING  THE   RUBICON 

stood  out  on  his  short  neck.  His  collar  was  limp,  wringing 
with  the  wet. 

"  Don't  scold,  R.  R.,"  laughed  Elaine,  "  we've  only  got 
three  minutes  more."  In  truth  she  was  as  pleased  to  hear 
him  grumble  as  to  say  aught  else — it  mattered  not  so  long 
as  he  was  there,  confining  his  attention  to  her. 

"Only  three  minutes!  Well,  it's  not  my  fault;  I  cal 
culated  on  twenty-five.  Ha!  I  left  the  book  I  brought  for 
you — the  *  Life  of  Rembrandt ' — in  that  confounded  waiting 
room.  I'll  run  and  get  it.  No,  I  won't;  I'll  let  it  go;  it's 
your  punishment  for  keeping  me  on  pins  and  needles.  I'll 
express  it  to  you." 

"  Yes,  don't  go  back  for  it.  The  train  might  pull  out 
before  you  return."  Her  eyes  were  fairly  drinking  him  in, 
swallowing  him  bodily. 

"  I'll  miss  you  awfully.  But  what's  the  use  of  repeating 
that  again!  Washington  won't  be  the  same  any  more.  I 
hate  the  thought  of  going  back  to  the  building  and  finding 
you  gone.  I — I — I  " — he  stopped,  stammered  and  blushed, 
and  Elaine  blushed  with  him,  feeling  herself  on  the  verge 
of  tears,  not  daring  to  choke  out  a  word. 

"  I'm  all  upside  down  this  morning,"  he  puffed  out.  "  I 
don't  know  what's  wrong;  it's  the  heat,  I  guess.  In  fact, 
I  know  it's  the  heat."  He  glared  at  her  as  if  he  defied  her 
to  say  otherwise." 

"  All  aboard !  "  shouted  the  conductor. 

Elaine  extended  her  hand  to  him,  in  voluble  silence  for  the 
last  time.  Bruce  called  to  her,  waving  his  long  arm,  Elaine 
turned.  Rossiter  Rembrandt  stood  looking  at  her  with 
mouth  agape,  his  hat  pushed  far  back  on  his  head,  his  ridge 
of  brow  projecting  like  a  missile.  A  gloomy  picture  of  the 
musty  studio,  of  his  going  back  there  and  flinging  himself 
down  on  the  lounge  and  crying  out  for  sheer  loneliness, 

357 


THE  RADICAL 

flashed  across  his  mind.  He  saw  down  a  vista  of  dreary 
days  and  forsaken  months.  All  that  made  life  precious  to 
him  was  going  away  on  that  train.  "  And  such  a  little  bit 
of  a  woman !  "  he  gasped. 

Addison  was  waving  his  handkerchief  in  farewell,  Bruce 
and  Inez  had  left  the  platform.  The  bell  clanged ;  the  con 
ductor  shouted;  the  wheels  turned  slowly,  with  a  grinding 
noise;  the  engine  puffed  and  the  train  was  off. 

"  I'm  an  ape!  I'm  an  idiot!  I'm  an  ass!  "  yelled  R.  R. 
"  I'm  a  pearl-gray  ass,  a  cross  between  the  domestic  and  the 
wild  kind.  By  God,  she  ain't  agoing;  I  won't  let  her  go." 
He  ran  forward  at  full  speed,  pulling  his  fat  body  along, 
puffing  madly  for  breath,  his  feet  falling  with  a  thump 
like  that  of  iron.  He  all  but  whisked  Addison  off  the  ground 
and  barely  missed  colliding  with  a  hand  truck.  The  spec 
tators  doubled  with  laughter  at  the  adipose,  puffing  R.  R. 
in  his  wild  race  for  the  train.  His  hat  fell  off,  but  he  did 
not  as  much  as  waste  a  motion  to  recover  it.  The  colored 
porter  yelled  at  him,  the  Pullman  conductor  motioned  him 
off,  but  heedless  of  all  warning,  he  grabbed  the  nickel  rail 
ing,  hung  on  for  dear  life,  and  they  lifted  him  on.  He 
stood  on  the  step  for  a  second,  very  red  in  the  face,  turned  his 
back,  and  grinning  triumphantly  at  the  impudent  ones  who 
had  dared  to  laugh  at  him,  shook  his  fist. 

Elaine,  who  witnessed  part  of  the  strange  performance 
from  the  vestibule,  covered  her  face  with  her  hands,  dum- 
founded,  afraid  to  look,  expecting  the  next  minute  to  hear 
R.  R.'s  dying  groan  as  the  feelingless  car  wheels  passed  over 
his  crushed  body.  She  was  ready  to  question  her  eyes  when 
he  stood  before  her,  hatless,  dirty,  puffing  for  breath,  the 
sweat  streaming  down  from  his  ridge  of  brow  like  water 
after  a  rain  from  the  roof. 

"  I  risked  my  life  for  you,"  he  gasped.     "  I  came  within 

358 


CROSSING  THE   RUBICON 

an  ace  of  getting  killed.  See  here,  I  want  you  to  marry 
me." 

"  Oh,  R.  R.,  what  made  you  do  such  a  foolhardy  thing? 
You  frightened  me  numb.  Don't  you  ever  dare  do  anything 
like  that  again !  " 

"  I  never  will,"  he  grinned,  "  if  you  will  marry  me  to  see 
that  I  can't." 

"  I  don't  see  how  I  can  help  it  under  the  circumstances, 
you  funny,  dear  R.  R." 

Inside  the  car,  oblivious  of  what  a  difference  the  last  few 
minutes  had  made  in  the  life  of  his  sister,  Bruce  sat  beside 
Inez,  gazing  out  of  the  window  on  the  city  slowly  disappear 
ing  from  sight.  The  water  of  the  Potomac  rolled  golden 
under  the  glaring  sun.  Even  now  the  capital  was  taking 
on  the  crowded  appearance  of  a  birds-eye  view,  the  burnished 
and  white  domes  of  the  Library  and  Capitol,  the  graceful 
shaft  of  the  Monument  standing  out  alone,  clear-cut  and 
well  defined,  forming  centers  about  which  the  jumble  of  long 
streets,  verdant  tree  tops  and  red  brick  buildings  huddled 
together  and  dwindled  away. 

Even  so  in  Bruce's  mind  were  tangled  and  confused  the 
innumerable  incidents  that  made  up  his  life  in  Washington, 
the  hard  trials,  and  the  suffering  and  the  agony  of  those  long 
years,  his  smaller  failures  and  lesser  triumphs,  the  many 
battles  he  had  fought  for  the  principle  sacred  to  him,  the  long 
nights  given  over  to  heartaches  and  pain,  the  few  short  days 
of  happiness.  One  and  all  of  these  were  growing  smaller, 
receding  from  memory,  merging  their  individuality  in  the 
mass  that  went  to  build  up  his  impression  of  the  past — a  birds- 
eye  view,  too,  a  whole  city  of  sensations,  as  it  were,  drawn 
in  miniature;  each  separate  joy  and  grief  reduced  to  a  dot; 
their  intensity  and  vividness  diminished  and  lessened  to  fit 

359 


THE   RADICAL 

the  final  picture.  And  as  the  city  of  Washington  was  fad 
ing  away  faster  and  faster,  the  Monument  and  the  dome 
of  the  Capitol  looming  out  of  the  distance  alone,  like  moun 
tain  peaks  on  a  flat  plain,  so  in  Bruce's  mind  there  loomed 
forth  nothing  but  the  inevitable  triumph  of  his  cause  and  the 
conquest  of  Inez. 

He  fastened  his  gaze  on  the  Monument,  its  outlines  merg 
ing  in  the  surrounding  atmosphere,  and  he  turned  to  Inez  to 
tell  her  again,  as  he  had  times  without  number,  of  the  hard, 
rough  road  they  would  have  to  travel  together,  of  the  sac 
rifices  she  might  be  called  upon  to  make  daily,  of  the  luxuries 
and  comforts  of  the  old  life  that  she  might  miss.  They  were 
crossing  the  Rubicon  now;  there  would  be  no  return,  and 
he  spoke  more  feelingly,  more  tenderly  on  the  theme  than 
ever  before. 

Inez  laughed  his  fears  down.  "  I  don't  call  that  a  sacri 
fice,  Bruce,  to  give  up  nothing  worth  the  while  to  get  every 
thing  that  is.  I  have  a  place  and  a  purpose  in  life  now.  My 
aimless,  empty — look !  "  she  ended,  as  if  the  thought  had 
seized  her  that  second  by  surprise,  "  my  faith  was  dying  and 
you  gave  me  a  new  religion." 

"  Well,  I  guess  the  trade  was  no  more  than  fair,"  he  said 
playfully,  "  see  what  you  gave  me." 

The  train  whirled  on,  the  plinth  of  the  Monument  re 
ceded  to  a  point,  scarcely  distinguishable.  The  gray  died 
out  of  his  eyes,  leaving  them  a  deep  dreamy  blue.  The  vision 
came  to  him  of  a  new  Washington,  to  be  transformed  in 
spirit  as  thoroughly  and  as  truly  as  the  young  architects  and 
landscape  artists  of  the  day — those  dreamers  of  beautiful 
dreams — were  planning  to  remodel  the  body  of  the  city  in 
which  the  soul  dwelt.  Might  the  spiritual  and  physical 
change  come  together!  It  would  then  be  no  longer  a  city 
of  swaggering  negations,  but  one  of  positive  accomplishments, 

360 


CROSSING  THE  RUBICON 

equal  to  its  magnificent  opportunities,  not  lagging  far  behind 
when  it  should  lead  and  direct.  A  city  of  all  cities,  ma 
jestic,  commanding,  serene,  the  glory  of  America,  the  spark 
ling  jewel  in  the  girdle  of  capitals  that  clasped  the  earth;  the 
new  Athens  of  a  dawning  state,  roofed  and  pinnacled,  painted 
and  carved  by  the  joyous  arts  and  the  vital  crafts  that  the 
wand  of  another  civilization  would  call  into  being ;  the  Rome 
of  the  future,  throbbing  with  big  purposes,  thundering  man 
dates  for  peace  and  good  will  across  the  seas,  the  deserts 
and  the  mountains;  its  fashioning  hand  felt  in  every  clime. 
No  longer  the  city  of  despair  for  him  who  wended  his  way 
thither  with  noble  aspirations  for  the  brotherhood  of  man, 
but  the  city  of  hope — the  true  capital  of  the  coming  democ 
racy  of  the  morrow. 

"The  new  religion!" — Inez's  words  burst  on  him  in 
their  full  content.  Hand  in  hand  the  new  democracy  would 
walk  toward  fulfillment  with  the  new  religion.  The  old 
creeds  were  tottering  fast  to  their  final  decay,  failing  to 
satisfy,  unable  to  circle  the  changed  concepts  of  men,  stand 
ing  outside  of  their  daily  lives  and  occupations,  apart  from 
the  huge  mechanism  of  production,  sinking  back  as  commerce 
and  science  swung  forward  to  alter  the  face  of  the  universe. 
The  dead  past  had  buried  its  dead,  fertilizing  the  ground 
for  the  new  harvest  that  was  to  give  food  to  the  hungry  and 
wine  for  the  weary  in  spirit. 

It  was  a  commonplace  in  the  philosophy  of  history  that 
when  the  economic  system  changed,  the  religion  built  thereon 
as  a  superstructure  changed  with  it.  And  the  competitive 
system  had  wrought  its  own  doom,  sounded  the  death  knell 
to  its  sham  and  base  ideals,  its  selfishness,  its  greed,  its  cult 
of  the  purse,  its  cruelty,  its  fostering  by  necessity  of  crime  and 
corruption,  its  enslavement  of  those  who  toiled  by  those  who 
profited,  its  strident  insistence  on  the  inequality  of  men, 
24  361 


THE  RADICAL 

its  struggle  of  the  classes.  What  meant  the  restlessness  and 
stirring  about  of  all  mankind,  the  crying  out  with  dissatisfac 
tion  at  the  present  regime,  other  than  that  the  ideals  of 
humanity  had  evolved  to  higher  things,  that  the  new  religion 
was  in  the  making,  that  competition  must  yield  to  coopera 
tion,  even  as  feudalism  and  serfdom  had  given  way  to  a  new 
civilization  which  now,  in  its  turn,  was  dropping  behind  in 
the  march  of  progress,  in  the  epic  movement  of  the  peoples 
in  the  pathway  of  the  suns?  It  was  all  written  down  in  the 
unsealed  books  of  evolution,  and  plutocracy  was  powerless  to 
stem  the  tide  that  swept  on  with  the  lift  of  the  seven  seas, 
joyfully  carrying  all  the  nations  of  the  earth  toward  the  new 
democracy. 

The  train  curved  on  its  tracks,  the  capital  disappeared 
from  Bruce's  view.  Inez  touched  his  hand  as  if  to  remind 
him  reprovingly  of  her  presence. 

"  Of  what  have  you  been  thinking  all  this  time,  John  of 
Dreams?  "  she  asked. 

"  I've  been  pondering  over  the  fact,"  he  answered  with 
a  chuckle,  "  that  the  White  House  had  a  wise  designer.  It 
just  struck  me  that  it  has  both  a  front  and  a  back  door." 

Perhaps  it  had  been  a  part  of  his  day-dream  that  he  was 
fated  before  many  years  to  return  to  the  City  of  Hope,  sent 
thither  to  preside  over  its  finer  destinies  by  the  voice  of  the 
people  that  was  calling  him  away  from  Washington  now; 
otherwise  what  rhyme  or  reason  was  there  in  his  ambiguous 
reply  ? 

(1) 

THE    END 


362 


By  DAVID  GRAHAM  PHILLIPS. 
The  Second  Generation. 

Illustrated.     Cloth,  $1.50. 

"  The  Second  Generation  "  is  a  double-decked  romance 
in  one  volume,  telling  the  two  love-stories  of  a  young 
American  and  his  sister,  reared  in  luxury  and  suddenly  left 
without  means  by  their  father,  who  felt  that  money  was 
proving  their  ruination  and  disinherited  them  for  their  own 
sakes.  Their  struggle  for  life,  love  and  happiness  makes  a 
powerful  love-story  of  the  middle  West. 

"  The  book  equals  the  best  of  the  great  story  tellers  of  all 
time." — Cleveland  Plain  Dealer. 

"  '  The  Second  Generation,'  by  David  Graham  Phillips,  is  not 
only  the  most  important  novel  of  the  new  year,  but  it  is  one  of  the 
most  important  ones  of  a  number  of  years  past." 

— Philadelphia  Inquirer. 

"A  thoroughly  American  book  is  'The  Second  Generation.' 
.  .  .  The  characters  are  drawn  with  force  and  discrimination." 

— St.  Louis  Globe  Democrat. 

"Mr.  Phillips'  book  is  thoughtful,  well  conceived,  admirably 
written  and  intensely  interesting.  The  story  'works  out'  well, 
and  though  it  is  made  to  sustain  the  theory  of  the  writer  it  does 
so  in  a  very  natural  and  stimulating  manner.  In  the  writing  of  the 
'  problem  novel '  Mr.  Phillips  has  won  a  foremost  place  among  our 
younger  American  authors." — Boston  Herald. 

" '  The  Second  Generation  '  promises  to  become  one  of  the  nota 
ble  novels  of  the  year.  It  will  be  read  and  discussed  while  a  less 
vigorous  novel  will  be  forgotten  within  a  week." 

— Springfield  Union. 

"  David  Graham  Phillips  has  a  way,  a  most  clever  and  convinc 
ing  way,  of  cutting  through  the  veneer  of  snobbishness  and  bringing 
real  men  and  women  to  the  surface.  He  strikes  at  shams,  yet  has 
a  wholesome  belief  in  the  people  behind  them,  and  he  forces  them 
to  justify  his  good  opinions." — Kansas  City  Times. 

D.    APPLETON    AND    COMPANY,     NEW    YORK 


THE  MASTERPIECE  OF  THE  MASTER-WRITER  OF  RUSSIA. 

Mother. 

By  MAXIM  GORKY.  Illustrated  by  S.  de 
Ivanowski.  Cloth,  $1.50. 

With  the  possible  exception  of  Tolstoi,  Maxim  Gorky  is 
universally  recognized  as  the  greatest  of  living  Russian 
writers.  Exiled  from  his  own  country,  he  came  here. 
Living  almost  as  a  hermit  in  the  Adirondack  Mountains, 
he  gave  his  whole  soul  to  the  completion  of  a  novel.  He 
believes  it  to  be  his  master-work,  and  it  is  indeed  over- 
poweringly  beautiful  and  moving. 

It  is  a  story  of  the  uplift  of  a  man  from  the  depths  by 
the  power  of  his  mother's  love,  with  the  tremendous  revo 
lutionary  movement  of  today  as  a  background.  It  has  all 
the  grip,  the  rush,  the  thrill  of  Victor  Hugo. 

"  As  a  human  document  this  book  has  a  right  to  take  a 
place  among  the  most  important." — New  York  Sun. 

"  Like  Tennyson  in  his  '  Rizpah/  Maxim  Gorky  in  his 
1  Mother'  has  touched  the  very  core  of  motherhood." 

— New  York  Times. 

"One  of  the  finest  and  most  compelling  pleas  for  human 
love  and  liberty  ever  written." — Chicago  Record-Herald. 

"  Strong — yes,  the  book  is  terribly  strong — it  must  be 
considered  as  a  great  novel." — Baltimore  Sun. 

"  At  the  head  of  Russian  literature  of  today  stands 
Maxim  Gorky,  a  man  of  amazing  force  and  ability,  and  a 
literary  career  almost  without  parallel.  The  greatest  novel 
he  has  yet  attempted  is  called  'Mother,'  and  if  one  may 
fairly  make  predictions,  it  will  indeed  be  one  of  the  great 
epoch-making  works." — North  American  Review. 

D.    APPLETON     AND     COMPANY,    NEW     YORK. 


BY   THE    AUTHOR   OF   "LITTLE    CITIZENS." 

The  Isle  of  Dreams. 

By  MYRA  KELLY.     Cloth,  $1.25. 

"  Myra  Kelly  can  write  something  else  besides  East  Side 
dialect  and  stories  of  the  children  of  the  poor.  But  it  is  a 
revelation  that  she  could  produce  so  sweet  and  perfect  a 
prose  poem  as  'The  Isle  of  Dreams.'  " 

— St.  Louis  Globe-Democrat. 

"  A  clever  and  gracefully  told  story  ;  full  of  crisp  dia 
logue,  bright  characterization,  sparkling  with  humor  and 
full  of  a  sunny  spirit  that  makes  it  delightful  reading." 

— Brooklyn  Eagle. 

"  That  *  The  Ise  of  Dreams,'  a  captivating  love  story  by 
Myra  Kelly,  will  take  its  place  among  the  best  sellers  of  the 
year  there  seems  to  be  no  doubt.  The  author,  who  has 
written  many  brilliant  magazine  stories  and  who  attracted 
universal  attention  with  her  *  Little  Citizens,'  takes  for  her 
central  figure  a  talented  young  woman  artist  whose  works 
are  bought  up  as  fast  as  they  reach  the  dealers.  Mystified, 
but  none  the  less  jubilant  over  her  supposed  success,  she 
discovers  to  her  intense  mortification  that  a  young  man 
whom  she  met  at  a  seashore  week-end  gathering  had  for 
several  years  been  buying  her  works  as  fast  as  finished. 
The  realization  that  her  horizon  of  fame  had  been  cruelly 
narrowed  moves  her  to  a  grim  determination  to  win  a  name 
and  fame  abroad.  How  she  succeeded,  and  what  took 
place  during  her  absence,  provides  one  of  the  best  literary 
treats  of  the  year." — Boston  Globe. 

D.     APPLETON     AND     COMPANY,     NEW    YORK. 


THE  LEADING  NOVEL  OF  TODAY, 


The  Fighting  Chance. 

By  ROBERT  W.  CHAMBERS.  Illustrated  by  A.  B, 
Wenzell.  I2mo.  Ornamental  Cloth,  $1.50. 

In  "  The  Fighting  Chance  "  Mr.  Chambers  has  taken 
for  his  hero,  a  young  fellow  who  has  inherited  with  his 
wealth  a  craving  for  liquor.  The  heroine  has  inherited  a 
certain  rebelliousness  and  dangerous  caprice.  The  two, 
meeting  on  the  brink  of  ruin,  fight  out  their  battles,  two 
weaknesses  joined  with  love  to  make  a  strength.  It  is  re 
freshing  to  find  a  story  about  the  rich  in  which  all  the 
women  are  not  sawdust  at  heart,  nor  all  the  men  satyrs. 
The  rich  have  their  longings,  their  ideals,  their  regrets, 
as  well  as  the  poor  ;  they  have  their  struggles  and  inherited 
evils  to  combat.  It  is  a  big  subject,  painted  with  a  big 
brush  and  a  big  heart. 

"  After  *  The  House  of  Mirth  '  a  New  York  society  novel 
has  to  be  very  good  not  to  suffer  fearfully  by  comparison. 
'  The  Fighting  Chance  '  is  very  good  and  it  does  not 
suffer."  —  Cleveland  Plain  Dealer. 

"There  is  no  more  adorable  person  in  recent  fiction 
than  Sylvia  Landis."  —  New  York  Evening  Sun. 

"  Drawn  with  a  master  hand."  —  Toledo  Blade. 

"An  absorbing  tale  which  claims  the  reader's  interest 
to  the  end."  —  Detroit  Free  Press. 

"  Mr.  Chambers  has  written  many  brilliant  stories,  but 
this  is  his  masterpiece."  —  Pittsburg  Chronicle  Telegraph. 


D.    APPLETON    AND    COMPANY,     NEW    YORK. 


AN   INSPIRING   BOOK. 


The  Young  Man  and  the  World. 

By  ALBERT  J.  BEVERIDGE,  U.  S.  Senator  from  Indiana, 
Author  of  "The  Russian  Advance."  i2mo.  Ornamental 
Cloth,  $1.50  net. 

This  book  will  go  into  every  household  where  there  is  a  son  and  a 
mother.  It  is  a  talk  with  the  young  man  about  the  young  man  of 
the  young  man's  country  by  its  most  prominent  young  man. 

Plowboy  at  12  ;  logger  at  14  ;  graduated  from  college,  De  Pauw,  at  23  ; 
plainsman,  law  clerk,  lawyer ;  U.  S.  Senator  at  36 — that  is  what  Senator 
Beveridge,  poor  and  without  a  pull,  has  done  by  sheer  pluck  and  hard 
work.  And  his  steady  conservative  work  in  the  Senate  has  won  him  the 
equal  regard  of  older  men  also.  His  name  spells  success. 

Bishop  Charles  C.  McCabe  says  :  "  I  wish  that  20,000,000  copies  of 
the  book  might  be  published." 

John  Mitchell  says  :  "I  trust  it  may  have  a  place  in  the  life  and 
in  the  home  of  every  young  man." 

Alfred  Henry  Lewis  says :  "  It  is  a  sparkling  well-head  of  courage, 
optimism,  and  counsel." 

Senator  William  P.  Frye  says :  "I  have  no  hesitation  in  com 
mending  it  to  the  young  men  of  our  country." 

Speaker  J.  G.  Cannon  says:  "It  is  a  very  interesting  book  by  a 
very  interesting  man." 

Representative  Champ  Clark  says :  "  It  is  very  worthy  the  perusal 
of  every  youth  in  the  land." 

David  War  field  says  :     "  If  the  reader  heeds  its  precepts 
'  It  must  follow  as  the  night  the  day 
Thou  canst  not  then  be  false  to  any  man.' 

Hamlet,  Act  1,  Sc.  S." 

James  Rudolph  Garfield  says  :  "  I  have  read  it  with  a  great  deal  of 
interest." 

President  Edwin  PL  Hughes  says :  "  Any  young  man  who  reads 
this  book  cannot  fail  to  be  made  stronger  and  better." 

President  W.  E.  Stone  says :  "  It  is  brim  full  of  suggestions  which 
every  young  man  should  know  and  heed." 

General  Charles  King  says  :  "  Here  is  a  book  our  American  youth 
may  study  with  his  Bible." 

A  cowboy  in  Arizona  writes  :  "  It  is  the  embodiment  of  every 
thing  honorable,  noble,  and  upright  in  life." 

D.     APPLETON     AND     COMPANY,     NEW     YORK. 


THE  AUTHENTIC  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

Abraham  Lincoln  :   The  True  Story  of  a  Great 
Life. 

By  WILLIAM  H.  HERNDON  and  JESSE  W.  WEIK.  With 
numerous  Illustrations.  New  and  revised  edition,  with 
an  Introduction  by  Horace  White.  In  two  volumes. 
1  2  mo.  Cloth,  $3.00. 

This  is  probably  the  most  intimate  life  of  Lincoln  ever  written.  The 
book,  by  Lincoln's  law-partner,  William  H.  Herndon,  and  his  friend  Jesse 
W.  Weik,  shows  us  Lincoln  the  man.  It  is  a  true  picture  of  his  surround 
ings  and  influences  and  acts.  It  is  not  an  attempt  to  construct  a  political 
history,  with  Lincoln  often  in  the  background,  nor  is  it  an  effort  to  apotheo 
size  the  American  who  stands  first  in  our  history  next  to  Washington.  The 
writers  knew  Lincoln  intimately.  Their  book  is  the  result  of  unreserved 
association  ;  hence,  it  has  taken  rank  as  the  best  and  most  illuminating  study 
of  Lincoln's  character  and  personality. 

"  Truly,  they  who  wish  to  know  Lincoln  as  he  really  was  must  read  the  biog 
raphy  by  his  friend  and  law-partner,  W.  H.  Herndon.  This  book  was  imperatively 
needed  to  brush  aside  the  rank  growth  of  myth  and  legend  which  was  threatening 
to  hide  the  real  lineaments  of  Lincoln  from  the  eyes  of  posterity.  .  .  .  There  is  no 
doubt  about  the  faithfulness  of  Mr.  Herndon's  delineation.  The  marks  of  unflinch 
ing  veracity  are  patent  in  every  line.  "—  New  York  Sun. 

"The  three  portraits  of  Lincoln  are  the  best  that  exist  ;  and  not  the  least  char 
acteristic  of  these,  the  Lincoln  of  the  Douglas  debates,  has  never  before  been 
engraved.  .  .  .  Herndon's  narrative  gives,  as  nothing  else  is  likely  to  give,  the 
material  from  which  we  may  form  a  true  picture  of  the  man  from  infancy  to  matu 
rity."  —  The  Nation. 

"  Mr.  Herndon  is  naturally  a  very  direct  writer,  and  he  has  been  industrious  in 
gathering  material.  Whether  an  incident  happened  before  or  behind  the  scenes,  is 
all  the  same  to  him.  He  gives  it  without  artifice  or  apology.  He  describes  the  life 
of  his  friend  Lincoln  just  as  he  saw  it."  —  Cincinnati  Commercial  Gazette. 

"  A  remarkable  piece  of  literary  achievement  —  remarkable  alike  for  its  fidelity 
to  facts,  its  fulness  of  details,  its  constructive  skill,  and  its  literary  charm."  —  New 
York  Times. 

"  It  will  always  remain  the  authentic  life  of  Abraham  Lincoln."  —  Chicago  Herald. 

Lincoln  in  Story. 

The  Life  of  the  Martyr  President  told  in  Authenticated 
Anecdotes.  Edited  by  SILAS  G.  PRATT.  Illustrated. 
i2mo.  Cloth,  75  cents  net  ;  postage,  9  cents  additional. 

"  An  excellent  compilation  on  a  subject  of  which  the  American  people  never 
grow  tired."  —  Boston  Transcript. 

"A  valuable  and  exceedingly  interesting  addition  to  Lincoln  literature."  —  • 
Brooklyn  Standard-Union, 


D.     APPLETON    AND     COMPANY,     NEW     YORK. 


AN  EXPOSE  OF  PRACTICAL  POLITICS. 


Bossism  and  Monopoly. 

By  THOMAS  CARL  SPELLING,  author  of  "  Trusts 
and  Monopolies,"  etc.  Illustrated.  $1.50  net ;  post 
age  15  cents  additional. 

This  work  embodies  a  life  time  of  investigation.  The 
author  exposes  the  fraudulent  practices  of  party  machines 
and  shows  how  bossism,  in  partnership  with  monopoly, 
rules  and  fattens  in  all  official  circles  from  the  town  council 
to  the  presidential  cabinet.  He  exposes  the  deceptions 
and  mystifications  of  politicians  of  all  parties  in  dealing 
with  "trusts"  and  u monopolies"  and  with  other  great 
public  affairs. 

"  It  shows  a  wide  knowledge  of  the  intricate  elements 
that  make  up  the  law  as  it  stands,  and  a  practical  and 
lawyer-like  grasp  of  the  situation." — New  York  Times. 

"  It  is  timely,  judicial  in  tone,  convincing  in  argument, 
and  cannot  help  but  have  large  influences  for  good." 

— Hon.  JOHN  FORD. 

"  It  has  much  valuable  statistical  information  and  pre 
sents  strongly  the  relation  between  monopoly,  whether  in 
transportation  or  production,  and  bossism  in  politics." 

— FRANCIS  .G.  NEWLANDS,  United  States  Senator. 

"  It  is  a  clean,  able,  and  convincing  argument  in  favor 
of  the  national  ownership  of  railroads.  Not  the  least  valu 
able  feature  of  the  book  is  its  exposure  of  sham  reforms." 

— Judge  SAMUEL  SEABURY. 

D.    APPLETON    AND     COMPANY,     NEW    YORK. 


"Extremely  entertaining:  because  it  is  full  of  char 
acteristic  anecdotes/'— HARRY  THURSTON  FECK. 

The  Man  Roosevelt :  A  Portrait  Sketch. 

By  FRANCIS  E.  LEUPP,  Washington  Correspondent  of 
the  New  York  Evening  Post.  Illustrated  from  Photographs. 
i2mo.  Cloth,  $1.25  net;  postage,  12  cents  additional. 

"  Mr.  Leupp  has  done  the  country  a  distinct  and  most  important 
service  in  enabling  the  American  people  to  see  Mr.  Roosevelt  as  one 
sincere  and  enlightened  man." — The  Washington  Post. 

"  It  is  frank,  critical,  straightforward,  yet  gives  a  picture  of  Theodore 
Roosevelt  that  will  increase  admiration  of  the  man.  The  book  through 
out  impresses  the  reader  with  its  great  moderation  and  strict  adherence 
to  truth." — The  San  Francisco  Argonaut. 

"  Mr.  Leupp's  book  has  an  undeniable  interest  apart  from  the  imme 
diate  appeal  of  his  subject.  His  pen  is  one  long  trained  in  the  art  of 
picturesque  presentation,  and  its  cunning  does  not  fail  him  here." 

—  The  Nation. 

"  A  book  of  the  times,  our  own  American  times,  we  should  call  this. 
The  author  has  not  in  any  way  glossed  his  estimate,  but  has  told  the 
brave  truth  about  the  real  President  Roosevelt." — 7^he  Boston  Courier. 

"For  the  task  he  has  undertaken  Mr.  Leupp  is  exceptionally  well 
equipped.  He  is  a  trained  observer  and  critic,  and  his  book  is  full  of 
passages  which  throw  a  novel  and  interesting  light  on  the  President's 
career  and  character." — The  New  York  Tribune. 

"A  sane,  well-balanced,  interesting  study  of  Mr.  Roosevelt's  char- 
acter  and  career.  Though  frankly  favorable,  it  is  critical  in  spirit  and 
discriminating  in  its  praise." — Chicago  Record-Herald. 

"  The  book  is  in  no  sense  a  *  life '  of  the  President ;  it  is  an  attempt, 
a  successful  attempt,  to  throw  light  upon  Mr.  Roosevelt's  personality, 
motives,  and  methods." — Public  Opinion. 

"  A  book  well  worth  the  writing  and  publishing,  and  well  worth  the 
reading  by  any  citizen,  whatever  his  political  views." 

—  The  Washington  Star. 

^"Mr.  Leupp's  book,  like  nearly  all  intensely  personal  and  well, 
written  narratives,  is  exceedingly  interesting." — The  Brooklyn  Citizen. 

D.    APPLETON    AND    COM.PANY.    NEW    YORK. 


By  the  Author  of  "THE  SILENCE  OF  DEAN  MAITLAND." 

The  Great  Refusal. 

By  MAXWELL  GRAY.     Cloth,  $1.50. 

"  The  Great  Refusal "  is  the  refusal  of  the  son, 
a  man  of  mind,  to  continue  in  the  career  mapped 
out  for  him  by  the  father,  a  man  of  money.  The 
whole  theme  of  the  novel  is  whether  wealth  is  to 
be  a  means  of  luxury  or  a  stepping-stone  to  social 
service  and  the  alleviation  of  distress. 

"  It  is  a  story  full  of  contrast  and  color,  a  brilliant 
picture." — Brooklyn  Eagle. 

"  The  lesson  of  the  book  is  unmistakable,  the  atmos 
phere  pleasing,  the  style  always  graceful  and  sometimes 
poetic.  There  is  no  lack  of  varied,  effective  action,  and 
many  of  the  conversations  are  noteworthy." — Chicago 
Record- Her  aid. 

"  When  Maxwell  Gray  gave  to  the  world  the  celebrated 
novel  'The  Silence  of  Dean  Maitland,'  critics  wondered 
if  such  a  gifted  writer  would  one  day  strike  a  purer,  clearer 
note.  She  has  just  done  so  in  issuing  'The  Great  Re 
fusal/  a  novel  of  self-sacrifice.  No  more  uplifting  book 
of  its  kind  has  appeared  since  Besant's  'All  Sorts  and 
Conditions  of  Men '  emphasized  the  lesson  that  we  do  not 
live  only  for  ourselves  and  that  we  can  fulfill  a  high  ideal 
in  bettering  the  condition  of  our  fellow-men." — Portland 
Oregonian. 

D.    APPLETON    AND    COMPANY,     NEW    YORK. 


BOOKS  BY  MAARTEN  MAARTENS. 

Each,  J2mo,  Cloth,  $J.50. 

The  New  Religion. — A  Modern  Novel. 

The  newest  offering  from  the  pen  of  the  gifted  Dutch 
writer — a  very  amusing  novel,  clever,  full  of  able  writing, 
and  a  good  love  story  with  a  background  treating  of  the 
present  conditions  of  medical  science. 

The  Woman's  Victory. 

"  In  this  volume  Maarten  Maartens  runs  the  whole  scale 
of  human  passion,  a  rapid  executant  sounding  each  note 
clearly.  He  has  a  rare  gift  of  condensation  and  uncommon 
understanding  of  woman's  nature/' — Boston  Advertiser. 

The  Healers. 

"  Every  man  and  his  fault  or  fad  in  the  healing  line 
comes  in  for  brilliant  attention  and  well-turned  satire,  and 
he  who  is  closest  hit  is  sure  to  laugh  the  loudest." 

— St.  Louis  Globe-Democrat. 

"  Mr.  Maartens  has  often  been  given  credit  for  his  subtle 
humor,  but  there  should  be  an  abundance  of  praise  still  in 
reserve  that  may  well  be  poured  upon  the  fun  of  'The 
Healers.'  The  characters  are  real  people  battling  with  real 
forces." — New  York  Times. 

Dorothea:  A  Story  of  the  Pure  in  Heart. 

"  Put  before  us  with  such  truth  and  with  such  fine  feel 
ing  that  it  awakens  ideas,  touches  the  imagination,  and 
altogether  gives  us  something  to  add  to  our  conception 
of  life."— New  York  Tribune. 

God's  Fool. 

"A  remarkable  work." — New  York  Times. 
"  Maarten  Maartens  took  us  all  by  storm  by  his  story 
christened  '  God's  Fool.'  "—New  York  Herald. 

D.    APPLETON     AND    COMPANY,     NEW    YORK. 


«J.  S,  OF  DALE'S"  GREATEST  NOVEL. 

In  Cure  of  Her  Soul. 

By  FREDERIC  JESUP  STIMSON  ("  J.  S.  of  Dale"), 
author  of  "  First  Harvests,"  "  King  Noanett," 
"  Guerndale,"  etc.  Illustrated  by  A.  B.  Wenzell. 
Cloth,  $1.50. 

One  of  the  big  novels  of  the  year — big  in  theme, 
big  in  treatment — big  in  its  perspective  of  humanity 
— normal,  sinning,  repentant  people  of  the  kind  that 
one  meets  in  real  life.  Two  young  society  people 
have  a  sudden  love  affair  and  marriage.  Then  works 
out  a  strange  story  of  two  temperaments  widely 
diverse,  two  lives  wholly  apart,  yet  holding  together 
to  an  end  that  can  only  bring  peace  and  happiness. 
It  is  one  of  the  most  powerful  arguments  against  the 
divorce  court  ever  put  into  the  form  of  fiction. 

:*A  novel  which  stands  head  and  shoulders  above  its 
current  fellows." — Providence  Journal. 

"  One  of  the  most  important  novels  of  the  year." — 
Springfield  Union. 

"A  valuable  contribution  to  current  fiction." — New 
York  Sun. 

"  A  novel  with  a  powerful  motif.  It  presents  a  study 
of  the  social  whirl  of  Greater  New  York;  of  a  young 
Harvard  graduate  who  loves  twice;  of  a  young  wife,  who, 
led  apart  from  her  mate  by  the  gay  maelstrom  of  the 
select,  plunges  into  the  estrangement  with  a  butterfly 
flutter  until  she  is  abruptly  halted  and  faced  about ;  of  the 
doings  and  sayings  that  go  to  make  the  book  what  it  is — 
one  of  the  best  of  the  season." — Brooklyn  Citizen. 

D.    APPLETON    AND    COMPANY,     NEW    YORK. 


A  MASTERPIECE  OF  FICTION. 

The  Guarded  Flame. 

By  W.   B.  MAXWELL,  Author  of  "Vivien/1 

Cloth,  $1.50. 

"  '  The  Guarded  Flame,  by  W.  B.  Maxwell,  is  a  boo* 
to  challenge  the  attention  of  the  reading  public  as  a  re 
markable  study  of  moral  law  and  its  infraction.  Mr.  Max 
well  is  the  son  of  Miss  M.  E.  Braddon  (Mrs.  John  Maxwell), 
whose  novels  were  famous  a  generation  ago,  and  his  first 
book  *  Vivien '  made  the  English  critics  herald  him  as  a 
new  force  in  the  world  of  letters.  '  The  Guarded  Flame ' 
is  an  even  more  astonishing  production,  a  big  book  that 
takes  rank  with  the  most  important  fiction  of  the  year. 
It  is  not  a  book  for  those  who  read  to  be  amused  or  to  be 
entertained.  It  touches  the  deepest  issues  of  life  and  death." 

— Albany  Argus. 

"  The  most  powerfully  written  book  of  the  year." 

—  The  Independent. 

'  The  Guarded  Flame '  is  receiving  high  praise  from 
the  critics  everywhere." — Chicago  Record-Herald. 

"This  is  a  book  which  cannot  fail  to  make  its  mark." 

— Detroit  News. 

"  Great  novels  are  few  and  the  appearance  of  one  at 
any  period  must  give  the  early  reviewer  a  thrill  of  discovery. 
Such  a  one  has  come  unheralded  ;  but  from  a  source  whence 
it  might  have  been  confidently  expected.  The  author  is 
W.  B.  Maxwell,  son  of  the  voluminous  novelist  known  to 
the  world  as  Miss  Braddon.  His  novel  is  entitled  *  The 
Guarded  Flame.'  "—Philadelphia  Press. 

"  The  books  of  W.  B.  Maxwell  are  essentially  for  think 
ers." — St.  Louis  Post-Dispatch. 

D.     APPLETON    AND    COMPANY,     NEW    YORK. 


RETURN     CIRCULATION  DEPARTMENT 

202  Main  Library 


LOAN  PERIOD  1 
HOME  USE 

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SENT  ON  ILL 


M&R  0  3  1995 


U. C.  BERKELEY 


FORM  NO.  DD6 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA,  BER 
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U.C.BERKELEY  LIBRARIES 


